


Learning to Cope

by ashisfriendly



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Violence, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-27
Updated: 2014-07-27
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:06:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashisfriendly/pseuds/ashisfriendly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern Day Witch AU || Leslie Knope spends her adulthood trying to find a way to navigate what she's lost, a way to be proud of what she can do. Ben Wyatt has lost too, but he only knows how to chase, not to cope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [c00kie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/c00kie/gifts).



Leslie Knope is 18 when she finally understands.  
  
She is sitting on her porch, with her hand over a bird’s chest. Just a little bird. A little bird that didn’t understand there was a sliding glass door in the way of his wish to go inside.   
  
It’s dead, its wing bent and little bird neck snapped. But she’s going to try to save it anyway, she’s going to try to do the right thing.  
  
Leslie closes her eyes and puts everything into the feeling of the bird’s feathers underneath her palm. The familiar pulse of electricity shoots through her body, to her arm, out to her fingers. Her breathing speeds, and her mind flashes, and with a pop, it all stops.  
  
The heart beats again.   
  
She opens her eyes. Her smile is slow to form but it’s etching across her face. The bird tries to roll over and she helps it but it still scrambles to get up.   
  
“Fly,” she says.  
  
The bird’s neck is still bent and wing broken. It starts to screech and flap its wings. She watches it go crazy, flap around on its side on the wood. It tries to fly, it tries to just exist, but every movement causes it pain. Every sound makes Leslie’s heart rip.  
  
“Come on,” she encourages.  
  
It’s more of the same. Screeching, screaming, flailing, broken, hurt. She looks away and wishes she didn’t hear the thump on the glass, wishes she didn’t want to prove something, wishes that there was no reason for her to give this bird life again.  
  
She’s a witch, but it doesn’t matter. At all.  
  
She grabs the bird and it thrashes in her grip. She says a single word in a short whisper.  
  
It lies limp in her hand and she drops it.  
  
She cries.  
  


~~

  
  
“Ann!”  
  
Leslie’s voice is high with drunk enthusiasm and unquestionable love for her best friend. Ann, beautiful Ann, turns around and her hair passes her shoulders and her eyes are sparkling. Leslie just wants to hug her.   
  
So she does.  
  
“What?” Ann hiccups.  
  
“The thing about you is that you are nice, okay? You are nice. I am sorry Steven--”  
  
“Scott.”  
  
“--dumped you but you know you are better than him anyway. Look at you!” Leslie puts her arm around Ann’s shoulders. They are slender and strong and perfect. “You could have any guy in this bar.”  
  
“You’re right!”  
  
“Yeah, damn I’m right!”  
  
Leslie erupts into giggles and Ann joins and Leslie just never wants this warmth to end. Ann was dumped again, by one more moron who didn’t appreciate how special she is. Luckily, Leslie knows exactly how Ann heals from a broken heart.  
  
It’s a much different ritual than Leslie’s. Leslie, when faced with heartbreak (which is common), loves to break out a good political thriller and read it cover to cover. If it is an especially bad break up, she will turn on You’ve Got Mail and cry throughout the entire thing, even during the happy or funny parts. And her favorite thing of all, of course, is burning all of her ex’s possessions with the spark she ignites with her bare hands.   
  
But this is Ann.  
  
“How about that one?” Leslie asks, leaning into Ann. Leslie points.  
  
“No, he has red hair, Leslie, come on.”  
  
“Fine, but I bet you would get with a Weasley if we were in Hogwarts.”  
  
“Leslie, you may be a witch, but this isn’t Hogwarts.”  
  
“I know, right? It’s unfair.”  
  
Leslie is too drunk to remind Ann to keep her voice down.   
  
“Oh my God,” Leslie gasps, gripping Ann’s arm.  
  
“Ow.”  
  
“Ann, that one, that one!”   
  
Leslie points without any regard to the fact that the man is looking right at them. He’s smiling, leaning casually against a tall table. His cheekbones are something out of a greek statue and from across the room, Leslie can tell his eyes are some kind of unnatural, crisp blue. He has a full head of hair and his body looks strong. This is perfect.   
  
This man is made for a rebound. Or a ‘get over that other guy’ night of sex, whatever people want to call it.  
  
“Oh my God, Leslie, stop pointing!” Ann squeals, giggling into Leslie’s shoulder.  
  
“Go over there. Talk about something sexy you did today. Don’t mention poop!”  
  
“I didn’t do anything sexy today.”  
  
“Oh, good angle, play it low key, I see what you’re doing.” Leslie tries to wink at Ann but just scrunches her face instead. She pushes Ann toward him while Ann giggled, stumbling through the bar. Leslie gives her one last push before shouting, “Tell him about how you showered today and what you looked like naked!”  
  
Leslie smiles as Ann walks over to the man and he greets her with such enthusiasm it’s like watching the sun greet the moon. Ann is a beautiful moon. Probably the kind that shines a little yellow and red, not the bluer moon. It’s the bright kind that reflects off of water.  
  
“Your friend stole my date.”  
  
Leslie whips around and falls into the chest of a man. She scrambles from him and brushes off his chest as if she left some type of debris behind. His shirt is blue and white plaid and his tie is really skinny and red. Like a thin, dorky American flag. She pushes her hair from her face and looks at him.  
  
He’s got harsh angles and big brown eyes and eyebrows that seem to say ‘I don’t understand’, but his smirk is casual. The drink in his hand is held in a light grip that gives off a bit of confidence. His other hand is in his pocket, his sleeves rolled and she sees his watch. It’s nice, it fits his wrist nice, he looks nice.   
  
“Oh, sorry, I should probably--”  
  
“I’m kidding,” he says. “Well, sort of. That is my friend Chris and he’s the only one I know here, but he is not my date.”  
  
“Oh.” Leslie tilts her head and straightens her blouse. “I hope you don’t mind, she really needs to get over this guy and he is perfect for it.”  
  
“Wow.”  
  
Leslie shrugs, unforgiving.  
  
“I’m Ben, by the way.” He doesn’t extend his hand but he nods his drink to her.  
  
“Leslie Knope.”  
  
“Well, Leslie Knope, it looks like I now know two people in this bar.” He smiles. “And one of them is busy.”  
  
She blinks and looks behind her, as if there is another Leslie Knope that is quasi being hit on by a man with an adorable face. Nope, just her.  
  
“Can I buy you a drink?”  
  
Okay he is definitely hitting on her.  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Great.”  
  
At the end of the night, Leslie knows a few things about Ben Wyatt. She knows he was once mayor of Partridge, Minnesota at 18, but impeached (that one she guessed), she knows he loves Game of Thrones, to the point that he ran his hands through his adorable hair when she said she never saw an episode (he said they would have to “fix that immediately”). She knows he is a personal accountant, she knows he loves grape soda, but cut it out of his diet, she knows he hates jogging, she knows he thinks it’s cute that she married two male penguins, she knows his fingers touching hers makes her insides turn to fire. She also knows his phone number, it’s in her phone.  
  
Ann leaves before she does and Ben offers to split a cab but she declines, not trusting her judgement. He says he will be calling her and leaves. Leslie finishes her daiquiri with bubbles in her stomach and a smile on her lips.  
  


~~

  
  
“You can’t ignore your mother forever!”  
  
“I can try!”  
  
Leslie slams her door shut and turns the lock, as if it matters. She jumps into bed and throws the covers over her head, clutching Dummy, her stuffed dolphin. She curls into him, her knees on his fin and her chin on his nose.   
  
Every year, on the anniversary of her father’s death, it is something like this. It is the third anniversary and Leslie still feels the gaping hole in her soul where her father used to be.   
  
The crappy thing, the really crappy thing, is he should still be there. There’s no reason for him to be gone, but here she is, left behind with her witch of a mother. Alone.   
  
Her dad liked to joke about his ‘witches.’ He told Leslie he fell for her mother because of some potion she put him under and her mom would laugh and say, “I swear I didn’t do that, don’t listen to him!” Leslie would laugh as he chased her mom around the house and rolled her eyes when they started kissing.   
  
Leslie grips onto Dummy harder as things fly across the living room downstairs. She hears plates hit walls and the wails of her mother. She is sad, too.   
  
Downstairs, the TV breaks and Leslie jumps, holding onto Dummy. She mumbles to herself, feels the light sparkle through her limbs and then she is deaf and she can’t hear anything. No white noise, no distant thrashing, no sounds of cars driving by. It’s almost peaceful but the silence is haunting, haunted by the ghost of her family’s happiness.  
  


~~

  
  
Leslie picks up her cell phone, stomach twisting in hope. Ben gave her his number two days ago but he hasn’t called.  
  
But it isn’t Ben, it’s Ann.   
  
 _911_  
  
Leslie signs off on a couple forms as fast as she can, just skimming the numbers and dates. She hands them to April on her way out. April growls in response.  
  
Traffic is slow and Leslie taps the steering wheel as she pushes and lets off the gas pedal. She parks in a drop off parking spot because of the lost time. It’s fine, this will be quick.  
  
Leslie runs through the lobby and presses the elevator button like a crazy person. She jumps in, taps her foot as it floats up. Ann runs past her and Leslie grabs her arm. Ann deflates in relief at the sight of her.  
  
“Come on,” she says.  
  
They hold hands through the hallway, the opposite way Ann was going. They turn toward the ICU and no one looks up as they go through the automatic doors. They slow down, and Leslie tries to regain her breaths as Ann leads her to the back, through a curtained room.  
  
Leslie hardly recognizes that there is a person underneath the tubes. It takes her a moment to blink them into focus. It’s a woman, head wrapped in thick white gauze and a tube down her throat, and in her chest. Wires sticking out from everywhere. Leslie listens to the hum of the machines, the beep of her heart. She watches the lines move on the monitor.  
  
Ann holds onto her tighter. Bless Ann, who understands how sad Leslie finds the fragility of human life. It’s straight empathy, really. Ann has no parents, she understands. But what Ann can’t do, Leslie can, and together they deal with it in their own, special way.  
  
“Freak aneurysm, as they always are,” Ann starts, whispering. “Mother of a three year old boy, father is out of the picture.” Leslie swallows the lump in her throat. “Surgery went okay but she’s not responding. Doctors said there’s nothing else to do, she may not even wake. The machines are keeping her alive.”   
  
“Do you know if there’s any brain damage?”  
  
“Some bleeding, obviously, and she had a stroke after surgery but it’s nothing physical therapy can’t help with.”  
  
Leslie nods and lets go of Ann’s hand. Ann goes to her usual place by the curtain’s opening and Leslie approaches the woman. She looks so young, no older than 30.   
  
There’s no evidence that starting from the most damaged area leads to the best healing, but Leslie does it anyway. There is no manual to being a witch, even if Leslie is trying to make one in her spare time.  
  
She puts her right hand on the woman’s head and her left on her shoulder. Then she closes her eyes and the hospital vanishes, the beeps slow and become fuzzy and she’s thinking.  
  
There’s a hum deep in her gut and vibration in her fingers. She concentrates and reels. It intensifies by the second and Leslie feels like she’s floating. She’s doing this for so long her hands feel like they are on fire but it finally comes, the satisfying pop and stillness of success. Leslie opens her eyes and hears the monitor’s beep speed up and the woman’s eyes flutter open.  
  
She did it.  
  
Leslie walks past Ann and Ann squeezes her shoulder. Leslie darts out of the ICU and Ann walks up to the nurse’s station.  
  
“Hunters is awake.”  
  
Leslie tries to shake her hands out as the automatic doors close behind her. She bounces on the balls of her feet in the elevator and takes so many calming breaths she feels dizzy by the time she sits in her car.   
  
Leslie met Ann a few years ago and only a couple months into their friendship did Leslie tell her. It was Christmas and they were making sugar cookies. They were more than tipsy from some wine and when Ann tipped over a bowl of batter, Leslie stopped it in mid air.  
  
It floated between them and Ann slowly looked from the bowl to Leslie. Ann dropped her spoon and Leslie let that fall to the ground.  
  
“How is the bowl floating?” Ann asked. She took a step back and Leslie felt her heart breaking.  
  
“Don’t freak out.”  
  
“How the fuck is the bowl floating?”  
  
Leslie grabbed the bowl, poured Ann another glass of wine, and told her. Ann didn’t say anything for a long time. Her first words were, “Show me something else.”   
  
Leslie did, sparking fire in her palms.   
  
Ann had questions, but Leslie loved answering them all. Ann still has questions from time to time, but now, Leslie’s rituals, her powers, all of it, is normal to Ann. It’s all valuable to Ann, just as she is to Leslie.   
  
Their relationship goes beyond 911 texts, it’s deep and true of mutual respect and admiration. They share their guilt and the memories, but sometimes, late at night during a movie marathon, Leslie and Ann just sit together, thankful they can fix one thing, one person, at a time. They can’t bring back those they buried, but they can do this.   
  
They can love each other and heal together.  
  
Leslie goes back to work and April stares at her as she walks to her office. April walks in and tells Tom there is a sale at Brooks Brothers and he runs out of the office without a word.  
  
“How’d it go?”  
  
April knows. She is a witch herself, but she is different from Leslie. Her great grandmother made a deal with the devil and April inherited her debt. April is aloof about all this, but Leslie catches her staring off into space sometimes. Leslie wonders what it’s like to live with an unwarranted damnation. Leslie’s inheritance doesn’t stem from the devil, but everyone has their own demons.  
  
“I saved her.”  
  
“And another one gets to live on this hell hole of a planet.”  
  
But April is smirking, her kind smirk that actually touches her eyes. Leslie sighs and sits up straighter.  
  
“A guy named Ben called while you were out. He said to tell you he’s not creepy for looking up your work number and that he dropped his phone in a fountain.” April turns to walk out. “Sounds like something a serial killer would say.”  
  
“He’s an accountant,” Leslie says.  
  
“Sure he is.”  
  
Leslie works and Tom returns an hour later, complaining that there wasn’t a sale but with two bags full of new clothes. She answers emails, takes a few calls for Ron, and walks around city hall to deliver some documents. She likes to walk around the building. It’s all very alive and it’s all very beautiful.  
  
April’s post-it with the drawing of a bloody knife and Ben’s phone number on it keeps her distracted. It is stuck to her computer monitor, taunting her. She puts it in a book and then takes it out again, putting it on her desk phone. Quarter to four, she just throws the paper away, she has his number anyway.  
  
At the end of the day, still parked in the parking lot, she calls him.   
  
“Hello?”  
  
Leslie forgets how to speak. She doesn’t know why she’s so nervous, men aren’t intimidating, she doesn’t usually get this caught up in nerves. When she was drunk, it was easy to talk to Ben. Easy to put her hand on his forearm, easy to laugh into his shoulder, easy to say, “You’re cute when you’re embarrassed.”  
  
“Hello?” he asks again.  
  
“Hi.” Leslie lets out a breath. “Ben Wyatt?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“This is Leslie Knope, Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana.”  
  
“Oh wow,” he laughs. “Hi Leslie.”  
  
“Hi.”  
  
“Hi.” There is a beat before he continues. “I hope it’s okay that I looked you up and called. Your assistant hissed at me, so I wasn’t sure if you would get my message.”  
  
“April isn’t my assistant, not that it matters. She gave me your message, sorry about the hissing.”  
  
“It’s okay,” he says.  
  
Leslie bites her lip, watching her fingers play with the bottom of her blouse.   
  
“What are you wearing?”  
  
“What?” Ben asks.  
  
“Oh my God! No, um, I’m sorry. I meant what are you doing?”  
  
Ben laughs and Leslie has a strong urge to throw her phone out the car window and run away to an island and never speak to human beings ever again.  
  
She’d miss Ann.  
  
“I’m not doing anything. I just finished my work and I’m kind of hungry.”  
  
“Me too,” she says, smiling to herself.  
  
“Well then,” he says, “can I take you out, Leslie Knope, Deputy Director of the Parks and Recreation Department of Pawnee, Indiana?”  
  


~~

  
  
Leslie has a strict rule: don’t tell boyfriends she’s a witch.   
  
Her first boyfriend is Zachary Cortez. He asks her to be his girlfriend in the lunch line. She responds by kissing his cheek and for a full two weeks, they hold hands while Leslie eats her peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Zachary devours his chicken nuggets. It’s the most romantic kindergarten love story.  
  
One day, Leslie and Zachary are sitting behind the slide. Zachary says, “Boyfriends and girlfriends kiss.”  
  
Leslie giggles, putting her hand over her mouth. She grabs onto his shoulders and kisses him quickly, leaving a spark on his lips.  
  
He gasps and crawls away from her. Leslie just laughs, delighted by the random jolt of electricity.   
  
“Sorry,” Leslie says.  
  
“What was that?” Zachary asks.  
  
Leslie gets on her knees and crawls to him. His entire body is tense and his beautiful, brown eyes are so, so big. But she’s exhilarated and fearless, her blood on fire and the rush of all she’s capable of coursing through her.  
  
She disregards every rule and leans close to his ear.  
  
“I’m a witch,” she whispers.  
  
Someone else knows. Her stomach floats into a knot. No one knew, not one other person besides her family. She has strict orders to not tell anyone, no matter what. But Zachary is her boyfriend, she trusts him. Of course, he will still hold hands with her while he dips his chicken nuggets into ranch. Being a witch doesn’t change that.  
  
Except that it does.   
  
Zachary screams and calls her the devil and tells her never to touch him again. He runs out from underneath the slide and goes into the boys bathroom. Kids look back at her, some crouch down to investigate the break up scene.   
  
She cries and cries. The bell rings and she doesn’t move, doesn’t try to go to class. Which is so unlike her because she’s never absent or late. Never.  
  
She only breaks the boyfriend rule once, with a boy she meets in college. She tells Michael and he doesn’t believe her, of course he doesn’t. She levitates their game of Scrabble and he sleeps on the couch that night.  
  
In the morning he’s gone and at noon someone calls her. It’s Michael’s mother, breaking up with Leslie for him.  
  


~~

  
  
Ann’s closet is gorgeous. She shops at Anthropologie and Banana Republic almost exclusively and all of her button ups are from J. Crew. It’s a fabulous treasure trove. She has an hour until she meets Ben at JJ’s and there is so much to look at and try on. Leslie curses as she goes through each dress and blames her short stature and other differences to Ann as she plucks some dresses from their hangers.  
  
“I can’t wear this but it’s cute.”  
  
“Sure you can, Leslie,” Ann says. She bends over her crossed legs. “You would look hot in anything.”  
  
“Oh, Ann, you sexy, clueless badger, I cannot wear this.” Leslie holds up the dress. It’s short and deep red, the neckline low and the shoulder straps almost invisible. “Not to mention, it’s a little too fancy for JJ’s.”  
  
“You once said JJ’s should have a black tie dress code.”  
  
“It deserves better, Ann.”  
  
“I say wow him and wear it.” Ann smiles, rubbing her hands together. She looks just as excited as she usually does watching Law & Order: SVU.  
  
Leslie bites her bottom lip and looks at the dress again. It is beautiful, but Leslie is right, it is too nice for JJ’s. But is that such a bad thing?  
  
“I’ll just try it on,” Leslie reasons.  
  
She wears it out of Ann’s house. Leslie still feels kind of ridiculous, this dress has no place in JJ’s. The only people who dress up at JJ’s are high school kids after prom. Ann insisted she redo Leslie’s curls and Leslie’s eye makeup is a little heavy but she admits she looks great. Almost as beautiful as Ann.   
  
Leslie gets out of her car and checks herself over in the car’s reflection. She adjust the small, black jacket and makes sure the skirt of her dress isn’t flipped up or too high. She contemplates getting back in the car and driving back to Ann’s house and putting on her work clothes.  
  
But why?  
  
She looks amazing. She feels great. And Ben is cute.  
  
So she walks in.  
  
He’s there already, scanning the menu in a corner booth. His brow is furrowed and the sleeves of his plaid shirt are rolled up to his elbows. She swallows, noticing he isn’t even wearing a tie. His slacks look a little wrinkled from the day. Ben scratches the back of his head, messing up his hair even more. His hair looks the same as it did at the bar, carelessly handsome.  
  
Leslie walks up to the booth and Ben looks up at her, a vaguely curious smile along his lips.  
  
But it falls quickly. His face slacks and his eyes grow. He trails his gaze up and down her body. He scans her face, moving between her eyes and her lips. He clears his throat and blinks rapidly until he shakes his head and stands.  
  
“Leslie,” he breathes. She’s afraid she’s blushing. Her cheeks are warm, she’s definitely blushing. “Good Lord, you look... incredible.”  
  
Now she almost feels ridiculous. Looking at his entire appearance and the harsh lighting and decor of JJ’s, she actually feels like an idiot. A hot idiot, but an idiot.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
Ben gestures for her to sit and she does, scooching into the booth with difficulty. Ben keeps swallowing and rubbing the corner of the menu with his thumb.  
  
They sit in silence, both of them looking at the menu. Sherry asks them for their drink orders and Leslie gets a Shirley Temple while Ben gets a cup of coffee. He asks her what he should get and she says waffles. He shakes his head.  
  
“I’m more of a savory guy.”  
  
“Well, that’s great and all, but these are the best waffles in Indiana, possibly America, maybe the world.”  
  
“I’ll just have a bite of yours.”  
  
It comes out so casual but she sees his jaw tense and his thumb stops rubbing that spot on the menu.  
  
He gets the burger and fries and Leslie orders her usual waffles. Ben talks about work and Leslie tells him about a children’s concert she’s trying to put on. He nods and asks her about the performer, the vendors, how many people usually come to this type of event. It feels foreign to have someone this into her, but it feels good.   
  
“So why did you move to Pawnee?” Leslie asks, licking a glob of whipped cream off her finger.  
  
Ben blinks, but doesn’t speak. Leslie squints at him and he shakes his head. “Sorry, what?”  
  
“I asked why you moved to Pawnee.”  
  
“Oh.” Ben grabs a fry and sticks it in his mouth, chewing. “Well, I like to travel and I can because of work. Chris also loves to travel. He is a motivational speaker, so that goes pretty well for him, too.”  
  
“He looks like he’d be a great motivational speaker.”  
  
Ben rubs his tongue along the inside of his cheek, eyes a little darker. “Yeah, he gets that.” Leslie almost asks him if she said something wrong but he continues, “Anyway, so we split travel costs and it really works for both of us.”  
  
“Well,” Leslie says, putting her hands out, “you picked a great town, the best town really. I can give you a list of places to visit, I can give you the entire town history I wrote, also I can give you the community calendar so you can look up what to do while you’re here.” Leslie digs in her purse. “Crap on a carrot, I don’t have anything in this purse.”  
  
“It’s okay, thanks.” Ben cuts his fork into her waffle and scoops up the bite. “No syrup?” he asks.  
  
“God, no.” She scrunches her face and Ben chuckles, popping the waffle into his mouth. Leslie hardly shares her waffles but something about seeing Ben with a piece of whipped cream on his lip is making her forget that.  
  
“It is a good waffle.”  
  
“The best waffle.”  
  
“Yes,” he says, “the best waffle.”  
  
Ben pays for the check and Leslie wonders if it is time to leave but Ben asks for a refill of his coffee (“Well, if it’s free.”) so they stay.   
  
Leslie looks at Ben’s Facebook photos on his phone of all the places he’s traveled. She marvels at sunsets and national monuments, laughs at him in scuba gear and aww’s at the picture of his nieces and nephews. She shows him her phone’s camera roll but it is mostly pictures of Ann, trying to not have her picture taken. And lots of waffles.  
  
“Ann is very beautiful,” Leslie says, flicking through the photos.  
  
“Sure,” Ben agrees. “Ann must be very important to you.”  
  
“She is the most important.”  
  
Ben nods but doesn’t look at her, just continues to watch the pictures fly across her screen.  
  
“Do you take pictures of all the waffles you eat?” Ben asks, laughing.  
  
“No, just the special ones.”  
  
“You didn’t take a picture of tonight’s waffle.”  
  
Leslie flicks her eyes to him and then back to her phone. “It was very special.”  
  
“That’s interesting,” Ben says, his chin lowering and voice dropping. “This was a very special hamburger for me, too.”  
  
Their eyes lock and Leslie’s stomach twists.   
  
She swallows. “Oh?”  
  
Ben nods. “It must be Pawnee, creator of the best waffles and best burgers. And the nicest Deputy Directors of the Parks and Recreation Department.”  
  
Leslie finally drops his gaze and her cheeks flame. She doesn’t know what makes her buzz more, his praise of Pawnee or of her.  
  
“We should go,” she says.  
  
Ben straightens up. “Sure, okay.” He suddenly seems less put together, his casual calm lifted and replaced with a slight bundle of nerves. Maybe she wasn’t clear.  
  
She grabs her things and leads the way out of JJ’s. Leslie feels him close behind her, walking in stride with her quick steps. She walks through the parking lot, through a few cars, until she stops at hers. Her heart is racing and her blood is buzzing. She needs to calm down and focus. It’s easier now than when she was seven but it still takes thought.  
  
“Leslie, I’m sorry if--”  
  
Leslie turns around and grabs Ben’s shirt, pulling him close. They stumble until Leslie’s back hits her car, their bodies smashed together.  
  
Ben’s hands skim up her sides until they round her shoulders. He pushes his fingers into her hair and she tries to breathe. In and out, she reminds herself. Ben nudges her nose with his and he licks his lips, the small flick of pink visible in the corner of her eye. She slides her hand down his chest, to his back. Her other hand joins and she pulls him closer.  
  
“My house is a mess,” she whispers.  
  
Ben lets out a shaky breath. “I have a hotel room.”  
  
They haven’t even kissed but Leslie doesn’t care, she needs to be in that hotel room now. She pushes him away and he stumbles into the next car.  
  
“Sorry, sorry, I just, um, yes, what hotel?”   
  
Ben flattens his shirt and says, “Pawnee Super Suites.”  
  
Leslie gets there in record time and meets Ben outside the lobby. Her hands are fidgeting and Ben keeps looking at the ceiling.   
  
His room is clean, hardly lived in from the looks of it. His suitcases are unpacked and stored in his closet. On the desk are neatly piled stacks of papers, a calculator, and a laptop.  
  
Leslie gently takes off her jacket and drapes it over the office chair. When she turns back to him, Ben is staring at her.  
  
His hands are at his sides, his forearms tense. She can see the lean muscle along the skin. Ben is running his tongue along his cheek.   
  
“You have freckles on your shoulders,” he says.  
  
Leslie inhales as if he kissed that spot right beneath her ear. How does he do this? With only words?  
  
She turns her head and looks down. There they are, the freckles. They dot along the skin and she smiles, shaking her head a little.   
  
“You’re beautiful.”  
  
Leslie snaps her head back up and, yes, she’s no longer breathing. Ben walks up to her, just a few steps, and pushes his thumb over her shoulders, rubbing in large circles. His hands are so big, how did she not notice how big his hands are?  
  
She feels the familiar buzz start to seep from her chest, it is trying to travel outward but she closes her eyes and breaths. Ben brushes her hair from her right shoulder and leans over, kissing the bone. She feels light headed and she sways. Ben holds onto her forearm and her waist. He kisses again.  
  
Leslie balls her hands into fists and concentrates on the powers that are trying to escape. Ben isn’t the first guy to make her feel this way, but he is the only one who has done this to her without even kissing her lips. She wants to have sex with this man but how can she control anything if his lips to her shoulder are enough to keep her from fighting everything off?  
  
Ben moves his lips to her neck, her chin. He pulls away and Leslie lets her eyes flutter open.  
  
“Gorgeous,” he whispers.  
  
Oh fuck it, if sparks fly tonight, it’ll be worth it.  
  
Leslie grabs the back of his neck and pulls. His lips are soft but his kiss is hard. Their bodies both relax, falling into each other for support. Leslie feels the push of his chest against hers and he groans as she opens his lips and devours him.  
  
His hands roam her dress, looking for the opening and he moans into her mouth when he finds the zipper under her right arm. He pushes the small straps over her arms and pushes the dress to the ground. His hands are everywhere, exploring the plane of her stomach, the curve of her hips, her breasts.  
  
When he breaks their kiss, she whimpers and goes to grab him but he’s already moving, trailing kisses down her body. They are hot and wet pushes of lips and tongue on her skin. Collarbone, breasts, stomach, hips. He hits every part of her that makes her sway on her feet. She’s dual focused, keeping the buzz at bay while inhaling every touch.  
  
“Take off your bra,” he says. His voice is gruff and almost demanding and it turns her insides into hot lava. He kisses underneath her belly button and says, “Please.”  
  
She does as he says and he works on her panties, sliding them down her legs slowly.  
  
Leslie looks down at him, just the top of his head and the point of his nose. He kisses her hip bone and then the other. She started this, she pulled him into her in the parking lot and implied that she wanted to take him home. But since they’ve been in here, he’s been in charge. It’s exhilarating and it helps keep her mind calm, keeps the electricity away so she can enjoy this.  
  
He swallows and rubs her hips as he struggles through his words. “Can you sit on the bed?”   
  
Leslie nods even though he isn’t looking at her and steps to the bed and sits, facing him. She watches him take her in and she almost wants to shield herself. She’s in her mid thirties now, and being with a new guy is always a little uneasy, but he’s positively devouring her. His eyes are dark pools and his lip is either curved in the slightest smirk or being bitten by his teeth.   
  
She almost insists that he gets just as undressed as she is, but he moves first. He turns and walks on his knees to her. Ben puts his hands on her knees, slides them up her thighs until the tips of his fingers push into her hips. He moves them down, between her legs and spreads them, running his hands back down to her knees as he does so.   
  
He looks at her, right at her, and whispers, “Amazing.”  
  
“Holy crap, Ben,” she whimpers.  
  
She grips the edge of the mattress and watches him move in, closer and closer, licking and sucking his way up her thigh. Then he’s there, his tongue just a soft touch.  
  
“Relax,” he says.  
  
She takes a deep breath and lets her head fall back. She tries another breath. Ben’s hand runs up her chest and he gives her a small push and she falls back on the mattress. She puts her hands above her head and looks at the ceiling, taking one more calming breath. She closes her eyes and loosens every muscle.  
  
“Good,” he whispers.  
  
Ben keeps his hand on her chest as he swipes his tongue over her, one long stroke that makes her shiver. He puts her thighs on his shoulders and plunges his face in, groaning against her as his tongue slides over her, rounds her clit, plunges in. He’s testing, she can tell, seeing what makes her squirm, what makes her moan, what makes her yell.   
  
Moves that make his name slip from her lips last the longest.  
  
When Leslie tenses, he stops and tells her again to relax, each time met with a sterner voice than the time before. She tries, but he feels incredible and it makes her nervous. She builds and builds and she feels heat pulsing through her and she’s scared it’s coming, that she’ll burn out a lightbulb or make his bed float.  
  
She’s close, as Ben pushes two fingers into her and flicks them up, while his tongue laps at her clit, but she catches the sight of his lamp floating in the corner of her eye. She tenses and it lands back on the table.  
  
“Leslie, I said to relax.” His mouth leaves her and he looks up. His chin and his lips are covered in her and it’s the sexiest thing she’s ever seen.   
  
“Sorry, I guess it’s just one of those nights.”  
  
His eyes narrow and then he shakes his head. Ben gets up and takes off his shirt with such blatant determination. He unbuckles his belt and opens his pants and they hang low on his hips as he walks over to the nightstand. He pulls out a condom. He opens it as he walks back to her and quickly pushes his pants down, toeing off his shoes and pulling off his socks.  
  
He’s so lean and pale but his muscles are still there against his skin. Just lightly. His dark chest hair is patchy and he is unbelievably sexy. Ben rolls the condom on and she can’t control her breathing. He does it so slowly, like he knows how his fingers along his own dick makes her catch fire.   
  
“Come here,” he says.  
  
He grabs her hand and pulls her up, kissing her. It’s a hard, long, wet kiss that is almost uncoordinated but somehow their movements work. He pulls away, licking across her bottom lip before he stands straight.  
  
She almost tells him, she almost screams, “I’m a witch!” but he’s already pushing her back down on the bed and pulling her hips toward his. She needs to tell him, she has to. If he fucks her, she’s going to give the entire building a blackout.   
  
“Ben.” She takes in a breath and he says her name as she exhales. “I should tell you something.”  
  
He immediately lets go of her legs and leans over her, pushing her hair out of her face.  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
Her heart skips. This guy is incredible. Sincere and soft, rough and determined. It’s all there, it’s all so present. It’s overwhelming but she decides to forget the witch thing, she was doing pretty good when he was in control, maybe he just needs to do that. She’ll be fine, she has to be.  
  
Ben Wyatt is too good to scare away.  
  
“Um,” she says. She looks at his chest hair and rubs her fingers through it. “I think I need you to take charge here.” She decides to skip the part about how she hardly ever gives up control, and by hardly ever she means never. He doesn’t need to know that.  
  
He smiles and kisses her, long and soft and perfectly delicate.  
  
He stands back up and she watches him transform again. Leslie whimpers and he nods.  
  
“Move up,” he says. Leslie scoots back on the bed and he crawls onto the mattress and sits on his ass, legs out. He puts a hand toward her. “Come here.”  
  
She follows him again, inches toward him and lets him guide her to his lap, her knees on either side of his waist, their chests pressed together. He’s right there at her opening, begging for her to impale herself on him. Ben kisses her cheek and whispers, “Go.”  
  
Leslie moans as he stretches her. It’s perfect, fills her up completely and leaves her breathless. She moves her hips slowly and Ben just clutches her and whispers into her neck. Tells her how beautiful she is, how amazing she feels, how wet she is.  
  
Each word makes her hips speed up and he even praises the way she moves. It only fuels her, it makes her move so fast, it heats her so thoroughly from the inside out. She climbs easily, each breath against her skin another inch closer.   
  
The lights flicker but she ignores it, she ignores everything, because this is perfect. If Ben notices the lights, he’s not saying anything about it.  
  
“I’m--I’m--”  
  
“Good, Leslie.” He groans and shakes against her. “Do it, cum.”  
  
She’s screaming and panting and clawing at his shoulders. He must be building, too. His muscles are shaking and his breathing is so erratic and his usual smooth words are now just pantings of curse words and her name. She keeps thrusting and moving and he cums, gripping her hips so hard she can feel his fingertips on her bones.   
  
“Keep going, keep going,” he urges and she moves, his thumb finding her clit.  
  
He only circles it three times before she is screaming his name.  
  
Her eyes are closed, riding out the entirety of her orgasm. It ripples through her completely, touches every bone and runs through every vein. It’s powerful, it makes her whole body buzz and she feels weightless and like she’s made of icy flames. She holds onto Ben as tight as she can. He strokes her hair, his own calming breaths tracing her neck.  
  
Leslie blinks her eyes open and Ben speaks between breaths.  
  
“Huh, the power went out.”

~~

"Fishing is boring."  
  
“Now Leslie, you haven’t even given it a try,” her father says.   
  
“Robert, she is right, it is boring.”  
  
Robert looks at Leslie in the rearview mirror and Leslie sticks her tongue out at him playfully. He does it back.  
  
“Just because you two ladies do not understand the calm reverence of holding on to a line and the great satisfaction of a tug doesn’t mean fishing is boring.”  
  
“That was boring,” Marlene says.  
  
Leslie giggles.  
  
Robert grabs Marlene’s hand and pulls it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. Leslie looks back to her book. Robert takes Leslie and her mom fishing with him to the lake every July 5th. Leslie is already sunburned from the celebrations the day before but she is excited to spend the day with her little family.   
  
At the lake, Marlene holds Leslie’s hand as Robert carries the ice chest and his tackle box. Leslie gets to hold the fishing pole now because she’s responsible and a big girl. Boring or not, she loves responsibility.  
  
Leslie spends the day splashing in the shallow water, the small waves cold and refreshing. Marlene watches from her towel and a few feet away, Robert sits on a rock with his line out.   
  
Leslie loves being outside. She loves parks, trees, grass, the rocky bottom of the lake, the naturally cool water hitting her legs. She loves the sky, whether it’s clear or full of clouds. She loves storms and rain, thunder and lightening. Everything about the outside makes her entire body feel like it is working in perfect time. Her blood flows in the right way, at the right speed. Her heart beats strong and happy. She can’t be sure, but she thinks she feels her skin buzz and her fingers tingle out in the fresh air, too.  
  
Her fingers start to prune and she can’t stop shivering so Leslie runs back to the towel and lays in the sun. The sun also warms her in a delightful way. She smiles, her arm over her eyes.  
  
“Hey little one,” Marlene says, “can I show you something?”  
  
Leslie groans, turning her head toward her mother. She keeps her eyes blocked by the sun.  
  
“Oh come on.” Marlene tickles Leslie’s sides and Leslie squirms, laughing.   
  
She follows her mom to the rocks that her father is perched on. Robert waves at them and Leslie waves back. Marlene leads her away from the shore, following the jagged wall of rocks. In the shade, Leslie’s skin prickles with goosebumps.  
  
“You’re always outside, running around in the park or trying to climb trees, so you absorb everything so easily and naturally,” Marlene starts, “but as you get older you will be able to do more and you will need to call to the Earth to do so.”  
  
Leslie tilts her head and watches her mother, leaning closer. Marlene kneels down and puts both hands on a low rock. Her fingertips turn white and she takes in deep breaths. Leslie can feel the buzz emanating from her mom and she sees the slight shake of her shoulders. However, she looks calm, the wind picking up her chestnut hair perfectly.   
  
Finally, Marlene’s eyes open. Her eyes look clear and her skin is bright.  
  
“Wow,” Leslie whispers.  
  
Marlene grabs Leslie’s hands and yes, Leslie can feel the heat and electricity in her mother’s palms. Marlene places Leslie’s hands on the rock and it is also warm.   
  
“Try it.”  
  
“What do I do?” Leslie asks, hopefully excited.  
  
Marlene smiles and shrugs. “You just feel.”  
  
Leslie closes her eyes but quickly opens them. She moves into the sun and sits down on the rocky sand. She pushes her hands and feet into the sand and leans back, feeling the sun on her face.   
  
Her eyes close, her heart lifts, and she calls to the Earth.  
  
And it sings right back.   
  


~~

  
  
The sky is calm and beautiful.  
  
Leslie lies on a picnic blanket. Her temple is touching Ann’s knee and Ann, gracious, trooper Ann, is flipping through the latest issue of  _Cosmopolitan_. They are drifting in and out of conversation, Ann intrigued by sex tips and ‘It Happened to Me’ stories and Leslie periodically calling to the grass below.  
  
“I don’t know if I can see him again,” Leslie says, watching the clouds glide across the sky. One looks like a raccoon.   
  
“Leslie, of course you need to see him again.” Ann smooths her hand over Leslie’s hair before flipping a page in her magazine.  
  
Leslie rises onto her elbows. “Oh, Ann, your beautiful face and smoking hot body just do not understand. It’s--”  
  
“I know, I know. So you made the electricity blow out, who cares? You like him and he sounds perfect for you.” Ann shook her head and then gasped. “This girl was followed to her dorm room and the man got inside. Good thing her roommate knew karate.”  
  
Leslie snatches the magazine. “Pay attention, Ann! This is important.” Ann sighs and clasps her hands in her lap. “I’m afraid to tell him.”  
  
Ann nods. “I do think it’s too soon to tell him.”  
  
“Then I can’t have sex with him, and I really want to have sex with him.”  
  
Ann nods, looking off. “Yeah, you definitely need to have sex with him again.”  
  
“Right?” Leslie falls back on the blanket, one arm flat in the grass and the other over Ann’s lap. Ann grabs her hand.  
  
“What about your parents? When did your mom tell your dad?”  
  
“After they got married.”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Leslie sighs and rolls onto her side, facing Ann’s folded legs.  
  
“What’s it like?” Leslie asks, rubbing tiny circles into the blanket.  
  
“Leslie.”  
  
“Just tell me.”  
  
Ann lies back next to Leslie, turning on her side to face her. “Not being a witch is terrible,” Ann says. Leslie smiles and Ann matches it. “I hate being outside even though you drag me out here, I just love you too much. If it’s too far away, I have to actually get up off the couch to get the remote.” Leslie laughs and blinks away tears. Ann waits before she continues. “I can’t heal anyone just by touching them. No matter how good of a nurse I am, I can’t do it.”  
  
Leslie lets a tear fall. “You’re a beautiful, wonderful nurse,” she whispers, bopping Ann’s nose with her finger.  
  
Ann mouths a, “Thank you,” and Leslie closes her eyes.   
  
The Earth vibrates beneath her. The wind whips Leslie’s face and the sun warms her from her core, outward. She takes in a deep breath and on her exhale opens her eyes.  
  
“You don’t black out an entire building when you orgasm,” Leslie points out.  
  
Ann laughs, the air between them lifting. “You don’t either, usually. You act like this is a bad thing.” Ann rolls on her back. “Call him, do it again. Do it a million times. I won’t even care if my power goes out.”  
  
After Ann’s flipped through all of  _Cosmo_ , sharing embarrassing sex stories and blow job tips, Leslie asks Ann if she wants to get some ice cream. Beautiful Ann claps her hands like a second grader and squeals, “Yes!”  
  
They sing along to "Spice Up Your Life" on the way and Leslie smiles as she bounces in her seat. It feels like her worries with Ben are a million miles away. Ann’s right, nothing is wrong with how Ben makes her feel. Anyone who makes her heartbeat spark and her skin buzz deserves her time, and she deserves the happiness.  
  
Leslie thanks Matt for the extra, extra sprinkles, and takes her ice cream to the table where Ann is sitting.   
  
“Oh! I have marshmallow fluff in my car. I’ll be right back,” Leslie says, tapping the table before rushing out to her car.  
  
Leslie digs through the trunk, yelping in delight when she finds the jar.   
  
“Leslie.”  
  
Leslie jumps and bumps her head on the edge of the trunk. She rubs her head and looks up.  
  
“Tammy,” Leslie says, squinting into the sun. “I’m sorry but I’m very busy--”  
  
“I haven’t seen you in awhile, where have you been hiding?”  
  
Leslie sighs, avoiding Tammy’s stare. Her smile grows sideways and Leslie feels the unease build in her stomach. Tammy pops her hip out as Leslie studies the label of her marshmallow fluff.  
  
“Working. Not all of us only work from 10 to 2.” Leslie forces a smile, closing her trunk.  
  
“We both know I work more than that.”   
  
“Leave me alone, Tammy.”  
  
Leslie sidesteps around her and walks back to the shop. She’s used to Tammy’s disgusting offers, and Dexhart’s sexual advances in order to gain Leslie’s allegiance. She’s dealt with other Tammy’s dark eyes and cold fingers in her hair when Leslie was a child, looking for dandelions in the park. Joan uses her desire for eternal youth to entice Leslie, saying she wants what is best in beauty for both of them, but Leslie knows the truth.  
  
The truth is, with her, they can get farther and become more powerful, fear less and do more.  
  
“What did you do last night?” Tammy asks, following her. “I had a great evening with Joanie and Marcia. We sacrificed the cutest—“  
  
“Ann is waiting for me, so if you’ll excuse me.”  
  
“I don’t understand why you associate with the normies, Leslie, it really isn’t benefiting anyone.”  
  
Leslie whips around.  
  
“First of all, Ann is more than just a ‘normie,’ she is a gorgeous power goddess of ethnic ambiguity and hospitality.” Leslie steps closer to Tammy, trying to reach her stare, trying to make her eyes just as cold. Tammy still looks amused, like Leslie is a plaything that she can’t wait to finally use. “Second of all, for the last time, I will never join you. I don’t need undeserved power or eternal youth or whatever else you are doing.”  
  
Tammy’s eyebrows lift above the rim of her glasses. A man walks by them and Leslie ducks her head down until he passes.  
  
“My powers come from something honest,” Leslie whispers. “I’m not going to ruin that by using it for artificial gain.” She pushes on the door to the parlor.  
  
“You get all those fancy words from the earth, too?” Tammy snickers.  
  
“I’m definitely not getting them from the library.”  
  
Leslie walks through the door and sits down at the table, quickly shoving a huge spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. She keeps eating, scooping marshmallow fluff out of the jar and eating it with ice cream, eating it by the spoonful, licking her fingers clean.  
  
“Are you okay?” Ann asks.  
  
Leslie jumps, forgetting her.  
  
She’s trying to forget the ending of Tammy’s sentence. What were they sacrificing? The possibilities were vast, spanning from a raccoon to an actual human child. Leslie’s gut churns.  
  
“It’s nothing,” Leslie says.  
  
“Leslie.”  
  
“You know, you’re right, Ann, it is a good thing I’m a witch.” Leslie snaps her eyes up to Ann, holding a spoonful of ice cream above the bowl. “But not everyone should be.”  
  


~~

  
  
“Well, if it isn’t Marlene Griggs-Knope.”  
  
Leslie turns around and she only glances at the woman before Marlene tucks Leslie behind her.  
  
“Tammy.”  
  
“This must be Leslie.” The woman, Tammy, kneels down and peeks around Marlene’s legs. Her blond hair is slicked back into a neat ponytail and her shoulders are straight. Leslie feels cold in her presence, but something about Tammy feels familiar. “She’s getting big. It seems like only yesterday you were waddling around with her in your stomach.”  
  
“I’m six!” Leslie says, stomping her foot. She puts her hands on her hips. Leslie is proud to be six, she reads sight words and writes her name over and over again. Sometimes, she even remembers how to spell president.   
  
Tammy’s eyes flash red and Leslie gasps, hiding back behind her mother. Tammy stands back up, her mouth straightening in a firm line.  
  
“She’s fiery, Marlene.”  
  
Marlene looks around the grocery store before she leans into Tammy’s face. Leslie looks at her blue, butterfly shoes, listening.  
  
“You stay the fuck away from my daughter. If I see you so much as look at her, I will make your life a living hell.”  
  
Tammy only blinks, giving Leslie the quickest glance that sends ice down her back.  
  
“Hell doesn’t scare me.” She pats Marlene on the shoulder. “It’s where I’m headed, anyway.”  
  
Tammy walks past Marlene and grazes one of Leslie’s pigtails as she passes. Leslie grips her mother’s legs and shakes. Everything feels overwhelmingly electric and the buzz in her ears won’t stop. She holds onto Marlene’s legs and cries silent, hot tears that drip with fear.  
  
That night, Marlene tucks Leslie into bed after Robert finishes reading Madeline. Leslie grips Dummy and tries to calm her breathing. She’s been scared all day, the icy prick of Tammy’s stare still tearing at her.  
  
The American flag night light doesn’t seem that bright tonight.  
  
Robert leans against the door frame. He keeps looking around Leslie’s room, his eyes finding the bedroom window again and again.   
  
“Leslie,” Marlene says, “we need to talk about what happened at the grocery store.”  
  
Leslie holds onto Dummy, squeezes the life out of him. Marlene slides her hand over Leslie’s head and down her hair, touching the loose curls at the bottom.   
  
“I need you to be a brave, big girl.” Marlene lowers her chin and makes her eyes big. This is her serious look. Not the one that means Leslie’s in trouble, but the one that means Leslie really needs to listen.  
  
“Okay, Mommy.” Leslie looks at her father, but his eyes are down on his grey socks. She is brave, she is big, she is six.  
  
“Being a witch is very important. You and Mommy are so lucky.” Marlene keeps playing with Leslie’s hair but her stare stays rooted on Leslie’s. “But it’s also dangerous.”  
  
Leslie looks at her father again. He’s watching the window.  
  
“Not every witch is good.” Marlene sighs. “Remember when we watched Wizard of Oz?” Leslie nods, she loves Wizard of Oz. “There are bad witches and good witches. Just like in the movie. But it can be hard to tell who is a good witch and who is a bad witch. Do you have any ideas about what makes a witch bad?”  
  
Leslie shakes her head but she’s thinking. Marlene starts to talk again, but Leslie interrupts.  
  
“When someone is not nice?” Leslie guesses. Marlene nods. “Like when I pushed Joshua at school. Am I a bad witch?”  
  
Robert hurries to the bed and sits at the foot. He puts his his hand on Leslie’s leg. “No, Leslie, you are not a bad witch.”  
  
Marlene and Robert share a look. His free hand starts rubbing Marlene’s back.  
  
“A bad witch uses her powers for selfish reasons. Do you know what selfish means?” Leslie nods. “Good. Sometimes a bad witch or warlock will use their powers to hurt others.” Leslie clutches Dummy harder. “A good witch uses her powers to help people, to make the world better.”  
  
Leslie sits up a little straighter. “I want to make America better, I want to be president.”  
  
Robert squeezes her leg. “You will be president.”  
  
“You’re a good girl, and a very good witch,” Marlene says.  
  
“Will they hurt me?” Leslie asks.  
  
Marlene clears her throat but Robert speaks. “They don’t want to hurt you, Leslie. They just know how powerful you are, how special you are.”  
  
A long uncomfortable pause sits in the air. Marlene and Robert share a look and Leslie thinks her dad may continue but Marlene speaks first.  
  
“Being a witch is so exciting, isn’t it?”   
  
“Yes.”  
  
“But you shouldn’t tell anyone, Leslie. No one, no matter what they ask you or what they say.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Maybe not tonight, Marlene,” Robert whispers. Marlene shakes her head. “I think the witches are enough.”  
  
Marlene’s voice is shaky, but strong just like it always is. “She is brave, Robert.”   
  
Leslie’s stomach knots and her fingers shake on Dummy. Her mother is right, she is brave, but she’s still scared.  
  
“Some people are scared of us, Leslie. They will hurt us if they know we are witches.”  
  
“Marlene,” Robert warns.  
  
“Even if I’m good?”  
  
“Marlene, let’s drop it.”  
  
“Yes, honey, even if you’re good.”  
  
Robert gets up and starts pacing. It scares Leslie, makes her clutch Dummy and close her eyes so she doesn’t cry. Mommy said to be brave.  
  
“Robert, calm down, you’re scaring her.”  
  
“I’m scaring her? Really?”  
  
Leslie digs her face into Dummy’s nose. She’s not going to cry.  
  
Leslie feels the bed move as Marlene gets up. Robert scoops Leslie into his arms and holds her close. He smells like old books and that very clean scent that is always on his skin. Leslie clutches his neck, Dummy squeezed between them.   
  
She sleeps between her parents for months, but the fear stays. As she grows, it comes in waves, unexpected hot stings of fear whenever someone looks at her for too long, a low rumble of nerves when she uses her powers discreetly in public.  
  
She grows up knowing she is hunted, that she has valuable strength to those who work for evil, and that she is the epitome of fear and revenge to those who kill her kind. She has gifts, yes, but sometimes, they feel like curses.  
  


~~

  
  
“Oh!” Leslie squirms against Ben’s side, shifting her eyes away from the TV. “That’s… wow. Is it usually like this?”  
  
Ben kisses the top of her head. “Sex? Yeah, there’s a lot of it, and gore.”  
  
“Well, sure, but no, I mean he’s raping her.”  
  
“Oh, um, well the show took some liberties from the books,” Ben says. Leslie nods but nestles her face into Ben’s shoulder. “We don’t have to watch this, I just thought you might like it.”  
  
Leslie doesn’t want to burst his bubble and hopefully liking  _Game of Thrones_  isn’t a deal breaker for Ben. It’s fine, but she likes her fantasy a bit more light hearted. Her life has enough fantasy elements as it is.   
  
“If it’s okay with you, yeah,” she says, “I’d like to stop.”  
  
Ben grabs the remote and turns off the TV. “Done.”  
  
Leslie opens her mouth to apologize but he’s turning against her and pushing her down on the couch. He slides his hips between her knees and he smooths his body against hers, softly kissing her.  
  
He’s grinding his hips against hers in a slow rhythm. She opens his lips so she can taste him. Ben offered to make her dinner that night and after clearing out her kitchen, he made her french toast with berries and a large helping of powdered sugar. He tastes sweet, so much more than he usually does. Ben is a savory guy, and she’s trying to be patient about that, really, but his dabs into the sweet make her hungry for him.  
  
Well, really, everything makes her hungry for him.  
  
His shirt is off and she’s working on his belt now. Leslie has fallen in love with his taut, narrow body. Two nights ago, she shed his shirt while he dealt the next round of Uno, cards flying. He did that cute thing where he says her name like he’s annoyed with her but his lips turn up in the cutest, most playful smirk. It makes her insides melt and her heart feel light.   
  
“You’re a monster, we just had sex,” he said.  
  
“I know, I just want to stare at your sexy, little chest and your slender, sexy arms.”  
  
“I don’t know if those are exactly compliments.”  
  
Leslie just growled in response, watching him pick up the cards.  
  
Tonight it is the sugar on his lips that is doing it for her. She pushes his pants down to his knees, thinking he’ll take care of the rest. Instead, he pulls her yoga pants down to her ankles in a clumsy motion of lips, hands, and limbs. Ben slides her underwear to the side and enters her.  
  
Leslie gasps and grabs onto his shoulders and his body falls onto hers, lips smashing. She tries to control her breathing, calm the surprise and the jolt he sends through her so quickly. It only takes her a few breaths before she leans her head back and just let’s him fuck her, the control steady so she can feel every thrust, relish in every stretch.  
  
The last few weeks, Leslie’s been learning to keep herself level with Ben. Their first night together wasn’t a fluke. He makes her unfocused and jittery and just the way he stares at her sometimes makes her body buzz. But, God, Ann is right. This isn’t a bad thing. This is a beautiful, wonderful, scary, and amazing thing.  
  
Ben breathes against her neck and Leslie pushes up to meet every one of his thrusts. His voice catches as he says her name and she reaches down to grab his ass, begging him to go deeper, to move faster.  
  
He does. He knows, he senses everything in her, he’s hyper aware of her every move. Ben always is. She inches her hips up and he presses down, she grabs his hair and he moves his tongue faster. Leslie’s right leg starts shaking and his fingers trace her slower, dragging out her orgasm.   
  
It’s not like Leslie’s never had great sex before Ben, but he’s different.  
  
Detail oriented, dedicated, aware, thorough, and almost as horny as she is. That’s the other thing about Ben: he’s intoxicating. Everything he does makes her insides flame. Ben scratches his head and Leslie pounces him. Ben rattles off all the inaccuracies of some rich guy’s investments and Leslie has to rub her thighs together. Ben grabs her can of whipped cream and squirts some in her mouth before giving himself a helping and Leslie growls. Ben tells her he wants to make her cinnamon roll waffles and the kitchen light burns out. Ben walks into her house and she yanks his tie until he’s on top of her, the wood floor against her back.  
  
He’s addictive but she sees no reason to break this habit.  
  
Ben shifts over her until one foot is on the ground. He grabs her thighs and pistons into her, leaving Leslie motionless and a mess of expletives. She catches her breath, almost becomes used to his fast rhythm, and looks up at him. His chest is red and the veins in his neck are as prominent as the ones in his forearms. The scar on his left bicep shifts with the muscle as his fingers grip and pull on her legs.   
  
“Oh, when I was 12 I fell out of a tree,” he said when she asked about it.  
  
“It looks deep for that kind of thing,” Leslie said, tracing it with her thumb nail. It also looked fresher but 12-year-old boys don’t put neosporin on cuts so she didn’t press it.  
  
“I caught a branch on the way down. Infected and everything.” Ben looked at it and then lowered his chin, inching closer to her lips. “It does impress the ladies, though.”  
  
Before she could even roll her eyes, he was sliding his hand down her pants.  
  
Ben suddenly stops and pulls out of her. She whimpers and raises her arms to grab him, as if the motion alone will connect their bodies again. Ben slides his fingers under the sides of her underwear and takes them off, taking her yoga pants with them. He tosses them aside and grabs her arms and quickly takes off her shirt, unsnapping her bra.   
  
“Yes,” he growls.  
  
He dives into her breasts, sucking and licking his way around the flesh. He massages them in his large hands while his tongue circles her nipples. It’s all very hungry and desperate, like the whole time he was fucking her he was missing them.   
  
Addicting.  
  
She threads her fingers through his hair and arches her back. Ben’s tongue slides from one breast, dips low on her chest, and up the other before he pulls away.  
  
“You have amazing breasts, I don’t know if I’ve told you that before.”  
  
His lips are wet and swollen and his hair is everywhere. His shoulders rise and fall with his quick, deep breaths. Leslie bites her lip and shakes her head.  
  
“No, I don’t think you have,” she says, a giggle escaping through her last words.  
  
“Well, then, may I say, Ms. Knope, your breasts are exquisite.”   
  
His terrible English accent should be doing nothing for her, especially since he’s already laughing at himself, but it is. It so is.  
  
“Say another thing like that.”  
  
“You’re joking.”  
  
She shakes her head. Ben’s eyes go wide but then he stops and thinks, looking at the ceiling.  
  
“M’lady, may I escort you to the bedroom?”  
  
Leslie groans and jumps up, pushing him onto the couch. He still looks shocked as she climbs onto his lap.  
  
“Something else.”  
  
“But you didn’t even let me escort you to the bedroom.” The accent is starting to fade, or turn Jamaican, but it doesn’t matter.   
  
She reaches between them and helps them connect, sinking onto him.  
  
They both don’t take long to climb and she falls onto his shoulder after she cums. He thrusts up to finish, gripping her back like a lifeline. Ben guides them both down on the couch. He turns his body so his back lies flat and Leslie curls into him, her leg over his and her arm across his chest. She kisses his shoulder absently while his fingers weave through her hair.  
  
She thinks about telling him.  
  
Leslie has thought about it a few times. Once when they were getting ice cream, she stole a bite of his and he just smiled at her, bending over to kiss her nose. Another time when he took her on a picnic in the park and she stretched out in the grass and closed her eyes. He asked her what she was doing and she tensed and quickly said, “Nothing.”   
  
She started to get up but he put a hand on her shoulder and lay back on the grass, guiding her head to his stomach. They watched the clouds move as her head rose and fell with each breath he took. She started putting together the words to tell him but fell asleep before they were perfect. They woke up with red noses.  
  
Then there was the time that she left during a movie night to help Ann at the hospital. Ben looked so hurt and confused and Leslie couldn’t think of a way to explain any of it to him without telling him. She just wanted his eyes to stop looking like that and a part of her wanted him to come with her. Telling men in the past felt like an obligation, like she was keeping a secret from them. With Ben that was true, but it was more than that, she wanted him to be there for her when the sadness took over or when her hands wouldn’t stop buzzing.   
  
It is moving too fast, all of it. She was with Michael for over a year before she told him and some men she dated for that long never got close. She’s been with Ben for only a month and she already wants to share this with him.  
  
It’s too soon, she knows that. They are just on a new relationship high and she’s riding it so hard she almost forgets the danger of it. He might run away, he might sell her out, he might never talk to her again. So she doesn’t tell him.  
  
Instead she snuggles closer and he tightens his hold.  
  
“I… really like you,” Ben whispers.  
  
Leslie smiles and draws a heart on his flat, soft tummy. “I really like you, too.”  
  


~~

  
  
On the first day of summer after fourth grade, Leslie is sitting on the freshly mown grass of her front yard.  
  
Marlene is at work because some type of senior prank has everyone in the education department at the high school. Robert just put the lawn mower away and is now getting out the weed whacker.  
  
Leslie pushes her star shaped sunglasses up her nose and lies back on the grass. The clouds are moving fast and her hair blows across her face. She runs her fingers over the freshly cut blades of grass and delights in the warmth from the sun touching the skin of her legs and face. She flexes and extends her feet and wiggles against the Earth as if she could get any closer. Robert starts the weed whacker and it overpowers the sound of the wind and birds and passing cars.  
  
She turns her palms up and welcomes the heat on them. Fourth grade was a huge success. She was student council president, she beat out a fifth grade boy for it. Bobby Newport. No one thought she could do it. Then there was the read-a-thon she helped Ms. Lee organize. And Lance who kissed her during recess. His lips were chapped and he smelled like tuna but it was still nice. On Monday, she starts the rec center summer, day camps. This week’s theme is bugs. Leslie doesn’t care for bugs but soon enough it will be Herstory week, a theme she advocated for last summer.  
  
The wind picks up and she hears the weed whacker move farther from her, Robert moving down the yard, toward the street. Leslie turns over onto her stomach and lies her cheek flat on the grass. It’s cool and scratchy and perfect. She closes her eyes and concentrates on the Earth below.  
  
Leslie jolts with the sound of screeching tires. Then there’s a crash, a loud thump and glass breaking, aluminum bending. Leslie’s heart jumps in her throat and she scrambles to her feet.  
  
She’s screaming.  
  
A man runs from his car toward her father.  
  
Her dad.  _Daddy_.  
  
His body is bent like a rag doll, as if bones aren’t even in his skin. But they are there, she can see one sticking out of his leg. Leslie doesn’t remember running but now she’s at his side, kneeling in a pool of blood. His eyes are open, piercing blue and wide, his skull cracked open, all red and clotted with something that looks like--  
  
She screams again, “Daddy,” falling at the end of her breath.  
  
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” the other man says, as he paces. “Someone call 911! Help!”  
  
Tears are flowing from her now and she’s yelling that he can’t be dead. She’s telling him to wake up, touching his waist but it’s all so lifeless. He’s so lifeless.  
  
Her heart is tearing and her lungs can’t fill with air fast enough to keep up with her cries and screams. She feels so empty and dark inside, it’s such a strange and overpowering feeling and she can’t fight it, she can’t fight anything. Not the tears, not the anger, not the screaming. The sadness.  
  
She puts her hands on his chest and closes her eyes. She’s heard she can do this, that people like her can do this. She concentrates on the feeling of his chest, how it’s so still against her hands. Leslie pushes past and wills him to live, wills her father to come back to her, demands he be alive.  
  
“Leslie!”  
  
Marlene.  
  
She grabs Leslie around the waist and pulls her off of Robert. Leslie thrashes in her arms. Leslie notices that other people are out of their houses now. There are sirens in the distance, her mother’s car stopped in the middle of the street, the driver’s door open. Marlene finally puts Leslie down and holds her shoulders to keep her from running back.  
  
“Leslie, calm down.”  
  
“Help him, Mom!” Leslie yells. Marlene shakes her head and asks her to be quiet. There are tears in her eyes. “Mommy, please! Bring him back.”   
  
Leslie knows snot is running down her face and tears are falling off her cheeks rapidly. She feels like a sloppy mess, she must look as destroyed as she feels.  
  
Marlene kneels down to Leslie. “I can’t, I can’t, please, Leslie, quiet down.”  
  
“You can! We can!” Leslie screams.  
  
Leslie believes in so many things. She believes in the powers from the Earth, she believes in the fair and just system of her government, and she believes in her mom.   
  
“You can do it, Mom, you can bring him back. You can!” Leslie grabs Marlene’s arms and her nails dig into the skin. If it is hurting Marlene, she shows no sign of it. “Please.”  
  
Marlene looks back as an ambulance pulls up. “No, Leslie, I can’t. It’s--he’s… he can’t be brought back, Leslie. It’s too late. It’s too much.”  
  
“You won’t try because there are people here! That’s all you care about! Just bring him back! Please. Please, Mom!”  
  
Marlene’s tears are flowing now, her chin shaking and her shoulders slumped, her grip on Leslie loose. She just shakes her head, trying to speak but nothing comes out. When she finally say something, it’s shaky and uncontrolled.  
  
“I can’t, I wish I could, but it wouldn’t work, Leslie.”   
  
Leslie doesn’t believe her, and at her father’s funeral she only holds her mother’s hand after she breaks down. Leslie keeps the grudge against her mother for years, always wonders the what ifs of that day. If Leslie was strong enough maybe should could do it herself. If she was paying attention she could warn her father of the swerving car. If only her mother saved him.  
  
It isn’t until she’s 18 and willing a bird to fly that she understands. Her father couldn’t come back. Witches can send electricity through bodies to get them working again, can reignite the heart, spark the brain’s inner workings, but they can’t regenerate broken bones, can’t piece together a brain, can’t reconnect the spinal cord.  
  
Witches couldn’t save her father that day.  
  


~~

  
  
Ben is late.  
  
Leslie tries not to think much of it at the thirty minute mark, but after an hour she starts to worry.  
  
She tries to sound calm in her texts to him, but the ones to Ann have rows of exclamation points. Leslie tries to forget about it, breaths in the reassurance of Ann’s, “He’s just late, calm down,” text messages, and works. Ben did say he had a lot of work today, but it’s now almost nine o’clock. Accountants don’t work this late.   
  
Leslie makes popcorn and watches the Daily Show and Colbert Report. She grabs her blanket and snuggles into the couch, letting the hum of C-SPAN calm her mind.   
  
She calls him and he doesn’t answer. She calls the police station but she doesn’t want to hear about his smashed up, grey Saturn, so she hangs up on the second ring.   
  
She’s overreacting.  
  
He’s fine.  
  
Somehow, she falls asleep.  
  
It’s Galentine’s Day in her dream. All of her favorite ladies are there, even Gertrude Stein and Hillary Clinton. They discuss their favorite parks, favorite amendments, and even the best senator pantsuits of 1997. Ladies are laughing even when nothing funny is happening and Leslie feels like air.   
  
But she falls out of her chair with a slight shift and one more random push jolts her awake.  
  
Ben.  
  
His hair is a mess and his face looks pained, eyebrows creased and eyes dark. Usually when he first sees her, his eyes look like fresh chocolate chips, but now they look almost black.  
  
“Leslie,” he whispers.  
  
When she finally sits up he smiles. It’s full of relief, his eyes rounding and face softening. His shoulders fall and he lets out a breath before grabbing her her by the shoulders and pulling her into him.   
  
She follows him to the ground and sits in his lap and he holds her. Ben’s fingers twist in her hair and she inhales his clean scent. His hair is damp from a shower and his arms are so strong around her. Leslie adjusts in his lap and wraps her legs around his waist just to feel him closer.  
  
They breathe and stay like that as minutes pass. It’s as if they haven’t seen each other in days. She doesn’t know what brings this out in him, but right now she doesn’t care. Only hours ago she thought the Pawnee PD would ask her to identify a body they found in a smashed Saturn. Leslie is fine here, feeling his heart on her chest and his breaths in her hair.  
  
Ben finally pulls away and holds her face while he kisses her. It’s a steady, long kiss that makes stars dance behind her eyelids and an endless swirl of clouds gather in her stomach. The kiss doesn’t lead to more, it’s not hungry, it’s loving and soft, thorough. A numb high crawls through her body, that feeling she gets when she’s just waking up or falling asleep. A comforting buzz. His tongue is delicate in her mouth and she sighs every time his hand adjusts on her neck, along her jaw, in her hair.   
  
Leslie doesn’t question this, either. This kiss that almost feels like a goodbye.  
  
She presses her body into his and her hips move just enough and she feels him stiffen. His hands travel to her hips and he moves them, so slow, as if he just wants a little release and not the full explosion.  
  
It’s mesmerizing. His lips glide on hers and his tongue carefully circles while her hips move, not even grinding but creating enough friction to cause him to hum and her limbs to tingle.   
  
No one pulls away, no one really stops. Their bodies just slow down and their lips drop and it’s just their foreheads and noses touching. Her hips still move a little, but it might just be her breathing that causes it. She almost feels like she’s asleep, like the world is in slow motion and she’s just dreaming, everything in a perfect, fuzzy vignette.   
  
“Leslie.”  
  
His voice is raw and low, a deep scratch from the back of his throat. Leslie nods against his forehead and he takes that moment to kiss her again. It lasts, just like the kiss before it. It peaks and moves faster but neither of them moves to take off any clothing, neither pushes past their lips. When they stop, her hips are definitely moving and not because of her breathing.  
  
Ben grabs her waist and stills her. She sees his jaw clench. He kisses her cheek and pulls farther from her. His eyes trace her face quickly, searching. She doesn’t know what he is looking for so she just stares at him, watches him nervously fumble for a clue. Finally, his gaze drops and he gently pushes her from his lap. He pulls her up on the couch and sits next to her, both of her hands in his.  
  
“Leslie, I” -- Ben clears his throat and looks away from her -- “I need to tell you something.”  
  
The spiral of bad thoughts comes again, this time much quicker. It’s the middle of the night, he’s avoiding her eyes, he is late, he is freshly showered. He could have been with someone else that night. They never discussed their exclusivity but she always assumed they weren’t seeing other people. It couldn’t have been just her who felt this, whatever it was between them. Perfectness? Electricity? The mold of their bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces.  
  
“I have never told a woman this before,” he continues, “and I know we have only been dating for about a month and a half but” -- he holds tighter to her hands and his brown eyes flick to hers -- “I’m falling in love with you.”  
  
Her mind goes blank and she thinks there might be floating pans in the kitchen but she can’t even form anything coherent to do or say. She just stares, hopefully she looks happy. She’s incredibly elated.   
  
Leslie finally feels the air rush back into her lungs and she opens her mouth to speak but Ben shakes his head.  
  
“I’m not done.” Ben’s legs start to shake. “I feel like there’s something special here.”  
  
Leslie nods, a smile gently tugging at her lips. “I do, too.”  
  
Ben grins but his eyes are still worried, still laced with something. His thumbs rub along her knuckles.  
  
“So I need to tell you something, something about who I am.”  
  
Her first thought is he’s an alcoholic, but they’ve been drinking white wine together for weeks. Maybe a drug addict, or a serial rapist. Nothing sounds right, nothing fits him, but she keeps reeling. He’s a con man, an escaped convict, an Elvis impersonator.   
  
But something else rises within her. Alongside her anxiety is the possibilities. He’s being honest with her, he’s baring something he is scared to share to better their relationship. He has faith in them, he’s diving head first and she will be in the water waiting for the splash. The stress fades and she starts to fill with hope. Hope that Ben Wyatt is the man she can tell. Ben Wyatt is the one who will accept her for who she is, no matter how strange or unbelievable or scary.  
  
Just like she will for him. No matter what.  
  
He laughs, a nervous laugh that rumbles in his chest. He shakes his head and squeezes her hands even tighter.  
  
“I don’t know how to tell you this, I feel like there’s no easy way -- you won’t believe me.”  
  
Leslie lets out a small gasp. She swallows it and leans closer to him.  
  
Maybe, just maybe.  
  
“I’ll believe you,” she says. Hope laces every word, faith rounds every syllable.   
  
Ben nods and watches his thumbs move along her hands for a beat, for two, for three.  
  
His eyes move back to hers and she stops breathing with his words.  
  
“I’m a witch hunter.”

 

 


	2. Part Two

Ben Wyatt screams the first time.  
  
That’s not true. He screams twice.  
  
The witch laughs when he approaches. He’s not surprised by her laughter. Everyone laughs at him now. Benji Wyatt: Impeached Teenage Mayor and Total Failure.   
  
Her being a witch doesn’t surprise him either. He figured that out a week ago. Witches don’t surprise Ben anymore. They make his blood pump harsh and quick in his veins, his skin prickle with goosebumps. He sees red.  
  
He was impeached only a month ago. That wound is still raw. The stabbing pain of failure mixes with everything he has bottled up for her kind, helping him move closer to her.   
  
“Benji Wyatt, what are you doing out here?”  
  
Her voice purrs out the words in a vicious trickle. She sways her hips and leans forward, her lips dark and plump. It’s a valid question, he did find her by the lake at two in the morning. He guesses not many men come around here at this time.   
  
Ben takes another step.  
  
“What are you doing here, Cindy?”  
  
She laughs again, as if the thought of him saying her name is funny. It might be. She laughed similarly when she turned him down for senior prom.  
  
But this isn’t about that. This isn’t about how he ruined his life, or embarrassment, or adolescent tragedies. This is so much more.  
  
“I guess you’re going to tell me,” she says, waving her hand as if she’s getting rid of a fly.  
  
“Going to ruin more families? Take away children?” he asks. “Or maybe you’re just planning those activities.”  
  
Another laugh. He curls his fingers into a fist and clenches every muscle in his body.  
  
“Oh, Benji,” she puts a finger to his chin. Her nail scratches him. “What you know doesn’t scare me.”  
  
He grabs her wrist. It feels weird to hold onto her like this, to hold any girl like this. Ben isn’t a violent man, especially towards women. But Cindy is more than just a woman, or a man, or even human.   
  
“Don’t touch me,” he says.  
  
She closes her eyes and before Ben can say anything, her skin is flaming hot. He lets go, shaking his hand from the burn. He flies backwards, pushed by a violent gush of air, into a tree. He screams at contact. He slides down the trunk and falls to the ground, tearing his shirt, scratching his skin.  
  
He groans and slowly blinks his eyes open. She’s in front of him, crouched down with eyes red. Really, red. The irises aren’t light brown anymore.  
  
“Did you come here to kill me, Benji? That is really stupid,” she says. “Incredibly stupid.”  
  
There is no point in lying. Besides, he really is stupid. He came unprepared. It is clear to him now, that she will kill him, not the other way around.  
  
“Do you even have a soul, Cindy?” His back feels so tender against the tree but she’s so close to him, he doesn’t risk sitting up. “Or is it waiting for you somewhere?”  
  
Her smile takes a long time to grow. It slides across her lips, tilts to one side, and never shows her teeth. She stands, shaking her head.  
  
“That’s what makes us different. I have no problem killing you, but you, you have a soul. A cute, puppy dog soul that is so sad now. It used to be so hopeful and nerdy and probably full of numbers. But now it’s just sad, carrying the horrendous weight of your failures. Your family’s disgrace.”  
  
Ben pushes off the tree, wincing. Hearing her talk about his family makes something inside him churn. He fights through the pain and stands.  
  
Her eyes widen a little, but she narrows them again, sliding a hand to her hip.  
  
“There’s something else that saddens you, too. Even before all of this, you still were sad. Poor, poor Benji Wyatt.”  
  
“Shut up.”  
  
“What, Benji? Did something happen to you? Something out of your control?”  
  
She couldn’t know exactly, could she? Unless she… no, no, they are the same age. She would’ve been 10, too, and that other witch was not a child.  
  
“How old would she be now, Benji? What was--”  
  
She didn’t finish that sentence.  
  
Ben never stabbed anyone before. It feels like the right thing to do, even when his very soul is screaming for it to end. He lets his soul do the screaming, his shouts echoing in the trees. He shouldn’t be so loud, but he can’t stop. She bleeds on him but she is silent as he kills her.   
  
He kills her. He pushes his knife into her stomach, her side, follows her to the ground, and slices open her throat. He’s covered in her blood by the time he stands. He’s breathing hard, tears falling down his cheeks.   
  
There is the briefest moment of panic, a flash of morality that courses through him. How could he do this? What is he going to do now? What does he do with her body? He stares at her, lifeless, pale, and red on the ground. He killed her.   
  
Killing Cindy doesn’t fix anything, but it doesn’t stop him either.   
  
He screams the first time, but only the first time.  
  


~~

  
  
She hasn’t moved.  
  
Leslie’s eyes are still a little wide, her mouth set in a soft line. There’s no grip in her hands that are locked between his. And she’s pale, so pale.  
  
This is too soon. He wants to take it back.   
  
Ben rubs his thumb across her hand. Nothing. Nothing ignites her back to life. Only minutes ago she felt so warm and alive in his arms. He wants to move them back to the floor. Maybe there she can forget what he said and he can mend this. Trace her lips and take his words back, kiss her between her legs so her cheeks flush, bringing the color back to her face.   
  
“Leslie?”  
  
He realizes now her eyes are unfocused. She blinks and looks at him, really looks at him. He almost sees a tremble in her chin, practically hears the questions she’s holding back. He traces her hands with his thumbs again but her fingers never come to life. He waits, keeps waiting.  
  
A loud crash makes them both jump. Ben whips his head toward her kitchen.  
  
“What was that?”  
  
“Probably nothing,” she says, then clears her throat.  
  
“Here, let me go see--”  
  
“No, no.” Her fingers finally grab him.  
  
She’s shaking now, he can see the tremble in her body and the shake of her hands. She swallows, struggling to work through what’s running through her mind.  
  
He doesn’t want this. No, no, he’s losing this. Losing her.   
  
“I’m--I’m sorry.” He holds on to her tighter, scoots closer to her but she freezes. His heart smashes to the floor. “Let me explain everything before--”  
  
“I, uh, really need to, uh, get this report on raccoon breeding done, so, I think it’s just best if you go.” She stands and dusts herself off as if she’s covered in something. “It’s late anyway.”  
  
“Please let me explain--”  
  
“It’s okay, I just have so much to do,” she flails her hands around as if showing him all the unfinished work.  
  
She starts toward the door and he grabs her arm. She recoils. Her body tenses and she yanks her arm out of his grasp, shielding herself. She looks beaten, her eyes flared in fear.  
  
“Leslie,” he whispers. “Please, don’t be scared of me. I would never hurt you.”  
  
Leslie opens the door and and waves at him, as if to tell him this is fine, that everything is fine.  
  
It’s not of course, and he can’t leave like this. If he leaves now, he’ll never see her again.  
  
He walks toward her but doesn’t touch her, respects her fear and confusion. It’s understandable. He is a murderer.  
  
“Can we talk about this?” Ben asks. “Later?”  
  
Leslie keeps waving him off as if this is just a silly misunderstanding. But she won’t look at him, won’t say anything.  
  
He wants to kiss her, so desperately wants to kiss her. He’s sure this is their goodbye, he’s positive he won’t see her again. But the way she pulled from him, so hurt and torn by his soft grip, keeps him at a distance.   
  
Ben studies her one last time. Takes in her yellow hair, messy from sleep. Her soft cheeks and the eyelashes that sit perfectly on top of them. Her mouth is in a small pout, pink and perfect. She’s so small, she fits so perfectly into him. His eyes trace the shape of her waist and the curve of her hip. He stops at her feet, covered in rainbow star socks.   
  
Fuck.  
  
No, no, no, no.  
  
“Call me when you’re ready. I will wait,” he says.  
  
The night is cold but he sits on her porch for an hour anyway. He thought maybe…  
  
But no. This is it.  
  


~~

  
  
Ben doesn’t find out witch hunting is a real thing until his senior year of college.  
  
In fact, he hasn’t killed another witch since Cindy. The guilt still rips at him sometimes, but regret never comes. He scares himself a little in that regard, but considering, maybe it isn’t that crazy.  
  
Or it is.  
  
Ben is sitting in the dining hall between classes, kind of reading The Iliad and kind of almost falling asleep. Someone taps his shoulder.  
  
“Ben Wyatt!”  
  
Not only does Ben not know this guy, but his enthusiasm is way too chipper for 10AM.  
  
“I’m sorry, I--”  
  
“Chris Traeger!” he says, extending his hand. Ben grabs it to shake but Chris pulls him out of his chair and hugs him.  
  
“Okay,” Ben mumbles.  
  
Chris pulls away, his grip tight on Ben’s biceps. He’s positively beaming, looking at Ben like they are best friends. Or brothers. Or even maybe lovers.  
  
“Is there something I can do for--”  
  
“Let’s take a walk! Or a jog, if you are up for the excitement of a racing heart and feet hitting the pavement. It’s beautiful!”  
  
“A walk is fine.”  
  
Chris slumps his shoulders in disappointment but as he takes his first step, completely becomes elated again. He smiles and waves at everyone and examines others with the same intensity he seems to do everything.   
  
Chris walks with a quick stride and Ben feels like he’s jogging to keep up. They walk through the quad and up a staircase, to the path toward the football field. Some other students pass them but this path is usually more secluded. Ben opens his mouth to ask what is going on, but Chris speaks first with a whispered enthusiasm.  
  
“I am a lot like you, Ben Wyatt.”  
  
Ben highly doubts that. Ben can hardly muster a smile from day to day. Chris doesn’t seem to know what a frown is. Or a neutral face. He has a flash of panic, maybe Chris knows about his impeachment and is finding some weird way to make fun of him or there is a prank at the end of this path waiting for him. He ran into these traps all the time in Partridge, but nothing since he started college.  
  
He stops. “Look, Chris, I made some mistakes--”  
  
Chris rounds Ben, facing him. He leans in close, causing Ben to stop. He still looks so intense, but not as gleeful. A serious intensity that draws him in.   
  
“I would hardly call what you did to Cindy Eckert a mistake.”  
  
Ben’s stomach drops to the ground. He takes a step back, putting his hands up. Is Chris a cop? He looks too young to be a cop, but maybe it’s an undercover thing like 21 Jump Street and Ben is going to jail.  
  
For murder.  
  
“W-w-what are you talking about?” Ben’s voice is lifting and dropping in octaves like a 13-year-old boy.  
  
“Ben, it’s okay, I’m not a cop or anything, I’m on your side.”  
  
“My side?” Ben asks, pushing his hands through his hair.  
  
Chris nods. “I understand why you did it.” Chris takes a step closer and Ben is rooted in his spot. “I’ve done it.”  
  
Impossible. This man looks like a Greek god, has the optimism and radiation of a young child, and cannot possibly be capable of murder.  
  
“What?”  
  
Chris scans the area, just a quick sweep of his eyes, before leaning closer to Ben. “I am also a witch hunter.”  
  
Before Ben can completely digest this information, he starts rambling. “I’m not, I don’t know what you are talking about. This isn’t, I’m not, how--do you--”  
  
Chris smiles, relaxes in front of Ben, and it’s hard not to follow him. He’s magnetic.   
  
Ben lowers his head. “How did you find out?”  
  
“When a witch is dead, and my family isn’t behind it, we become curious.”  
  
“Your family?”  
  
Chris shakes his head. He puts a hand on Ben’s shoulder.   
  
“Later.” Chris turns and keeps walking. Ben takes a moment before he follows. “First, tell me how you killed her.”  
  
He does, he recounts everything and Chris nods and cringes appropriately. He tells Ben he did good, that he shouldn’t be ashamed.   
  
“I’m not, not really.”  
  
“Why did you kill her?” Chris asks.  
  
Ben looks to the sky and says, “Later.”  
  


~~

  
  
It’s been two weeks.  
  
Two weeks without Leslie, two weeks thinking of her, two weeks being too distracted to work, two weeks of wallowing.   
  
Ben is in bed. He always is now, swiping through his iPad until he grows bored of that. Then he opens Tetris and wastes hours there. When he’s not on his iPad, he’s looking up photography equipment on Amazon and almost clicking buy, but instead looks up something else. Like duck slippers or Star Wars playing cards. Considering he spends so much time on Amazon, it’s a wonder he’s only managed to buy a rice cooker and some plaid pajamas.   
  
He collapses back on the pillows, tossing his iPad to the foot of the bed. The ceiling of his hotel room is familiar to him now. He knows the cracks and dust and the possibility of mold. He knows that if he squints everything looks a little grey and green. If he opens his eyes too wide and stares long enough, the lines will start moving.   
  
He is falling in love with Leslie. He knows that. It is what drove him to go to her house after a kill and confess to his double life. But without her at all? Hours and hours of missing her and craving her and wanting every ounce of her with him? It makes him realize he isn’t just falling in love with Leslie Knope.  
  
He’s already there.  
  
It does seem sudden. The last time he said, “I love you,” was to a girl he dated for three years. It’s true all the same.  
  
Ben’s life is fucked up. Yes, he does actually have a real job with real pay and he’s able to purchase real health benefits and plan for his financial future and retirement. But that’s not who he really is. He’s not even a board game inventor or a man who loves number puzzles. He’s a murderer. He hunts witches, seeks them out, specifically to kill them. He’s taken the misfortune of his childhood and his adolescence and turned it into destruction. There’s a way to deal without this, but it’s too late. This is the only way he’s learned to cope and it’s the only way he knows how to exist.  
  
He should know that being with a woman like Leslie is ridiculous. She’s everything light and optimism and glory. She’s joy that’s been wrapped into a beautiful shell of yellow hair, blue eyes, tiny curves, and short legs. She’s the personification of a surprise party, causing unexpected unease that bursts into happiness. She holds everything into herself and then explodes; raining down on the world with the possibility of anything.  
  
Before Leslie, life was chasing witches with Chris. Cleaning blood off his clothes, sitting up all night pouring over financial records and spreadsheets. He’d fall asleep and repeat it all the next day. After Leslie, everything is more. More heartbeats, more smiles, more reasons to live. In the two months they were together, hunting wasn’t in the forefront of his mind. For once there was more to life than chasing revenge and coursing adrenaline.   
  
There were back massages and licking whipped cream off lips. CNN as background music while Leslie straddled his lap and sucked on his neck. There was throwing back the covers so he could see her naked body in the moonlight. Her hand on his forehead when he felt under the weather. Hot chocolate, white wine, pancakes, bacon filled mac and cheese, kisses smothered in powdered sugar.   
  
There was happiness. So raw and pure and nothing like he has known.   
  
Gone. Just like it never happened.  
  
The more he thinks, the unfairness of it all starts to eat at him. This relationship was new, yes, but it was real and deeper than any of the ones of the same length he’s been in. Hell, even some that were longer didn’t feel this right. He knows he isn’t alone. He felt the way she kissed him, saw the way she lit up when he opened his door for her. For fuck’s sake, he even brought up kids to her.  
  
“You keep saying that but it doesn’t sound like a compliment,” he said, after another one of her rambling praises of his body.  
  
“Mmm, it is.” She crawled up his body, marking his chest with her teeth as she went.  
  
“My kids are going to hate me for passing along my weird genes,” he said.  
  
She stopped. “You want kids?”  
  
“I think so, but, I mean, maybe. Yeah.”  
  
She smiled at him, kind of dream like with a hint of need. “Me too.”  
  
Ben groans at the memory. He sinks his face into a pillow. The truth is, he didn’t even think of kids until Leslie. He is a fucking serial killer, he can’t have kids. This isn’t Dexter, it’s real life. He could go to prison, he could put the baby in danger, the baby could…   
  
This is insane. He’s insane. The world is insane. It’s unfair. She didn’t even listen to him. Did she even understand? Does she know what witches do? What they’re capable of? He couldn’t even tell her why, explain how he came into this life, tell her that she is safe with him, that he would never hurt her. Instead, she shut him out, kicked him out of her life like he was nothing.   
  
Like they were nothing.  
  
Ben jumps out of bed and pulls on a pair of black jeans and a dark shirt. He knows he’s acting irrationally but whatever, if Leslie thought of him as a careless murderer, he’d be one.  
  
Plus, putting a witch in the ground sounds very satisfying right now.  
  
Monsters, all of them. If only he could explain that to her.  
  
He arms himself and storms out of the hotel, only stopping for a brief moment in front of Chris’ door. He should ask him to join, but right now he didn’t think he could stomach Chris’ continuous optimism. This world is shit. He doesn't need Chris to try to tell him otherwise.  
  
Chris and Ben know a little about the witches here. Of course, that there are some, and who some of them are. They killed a warlock on the night Ben confessed to Leslie. It was a strange kill, with missteps and close calls. Ben didn’t want to be dishonest anymore. Being dishonest doesn’t always pan out. But neither does honesty, apparently.  
  
He grips his steering wheel at the thought. He can’t win. He can only be in this life he’s created. Fine. If he can save people at least he can have something real. Or he can tell himself that.  
  
He pulls over, grabs his crossbow from the trunk, and walks through the Pawnee campground. This is a perfect place for them. Witches love to be deep in the woods, far away from humanity so they can secretly plan whatever destruction is ahead of them.  
  
Just hunting them helps. His heart pounding and leaves under his boots. He breathes hard, hurries through, determined and seeing red.   
  
Ben doesn’t know how long he is out there, hours probably. It doesn’t matter. He finally feels like he has power again. Like he can change something about his fate. Leslie dismisses him as if he’s nothing, he scares her, fine. At least he can do something more than wallow in his own filth, buying shit he doesn’t need.  
  
He hears them before he sees them. Cackling and sitting around a fire. Only two, perfect.  
  
“I don’t think he loves me anymore,” one says, “but it’s his mistake.”  
  
They both laugh.  
  
“Men are useless, only put here to tempt us. Look where I ended up, Joan.”  
  
Ben walks carefully between trees, using their echoes of laughter to help disguise his movements.  
  
The other woman, presumably Joan, nods, drinking from a tiny bottle of liquor. “You’re right, Marcia. Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em all.”  
  
They laugh again, slapping knees and doubling over. Marcia stands and dusts herself off as if she’s covered in dirt. But her outfit looks pristine, almost like she’s a Sunday school teacher. She doesn’t fit the usual profile but maybe that’s part of her game.   
  
Joan, however, looks like any other power hungry witch. Uses her powers to get ahead, demolishes the competition either by killing them or controlling those above her. He can’t tell what Marcia’s motivation is, but at the moment, he doesn’t care.   
  
Besides, isn’t that what he swore to do? Kill them all?  
  
Ben loads and secures his bow, patient. Joan really isn’t moving, just sipping her alcohol and humming to herself. She’s the easiest. For some reason, Marcia keeps pacing and looking at a book. Her behavior is strange.  
  
He takes a breath. Ben pulls the trigger.  
  
Joan falls over, the arrow in her neck. Her body makes a satisfying crunch on the leaves. He quickly tries to load again. Marcia is yelling Joan’s name and running to her. She looks her over, asks her if she’s okay, and then stands, looking out toward him. He raises the bow again just as she locks eyes with him.   
  
She can’t see him, there’s no way.  
  
But she does.   
  
Ben is pushed as he he shoots. The arrow soars to the sky and he falls backwards. He scrambles up, discarding the bow, reaching for his knife. He grips, blade out, and elbow bent, ready to slice her neck.  
  
He’s glad he prepared himself. She’s in front of him now. Her eyes are red and face like stone. He whips his arm across. She backs up just in time to miss his slice. He groans, reaching out to grab her but she’s quicker, bashing him over the head with a rock he didn’t see her holding. Maybe she wasn’t holding it at all.  
  
He falls over and she follows, hands tight on his neck. He swipes at her, tries to get a cut or punch in but she’s strong. He can’t breathe. Marcia is still looking at him with her wide, red eyes and a stoic calm that is just as terrifying as the looming whiff of death ahead of him.  
  
He reaches outward, trying to find anything on the ground he can use. His vision starts to vignette.  
  
His hand crosses over a branch, thick but nothing to free him. He tries anyway. He lifts it and swipes it toward her. She pushes it back with nothing else but her mind.  
  
But it took the strength away from her hands and he uses this moment to heave himself up. Ben butts her head and and she falls backward. He grabs his knife, hurling it toward the ground.   
  
It takes her, right in the eye, her screams engulfing the forest.  
  
He takes out the blade and shoves it into the side of her neck, pulling it forward until he sees the red pour from her throat.   
  
Ben stands and looks for Joan. She’s still on the ground, but she moves, struggling to take care of her injury. There is so much to damage in the neck, if he is lucky, he got her spinal chord. For Marcia, he’ll have to throw her in the fire.  
  
Marcia gargles wordless pleas as he drags her forward. He doesn’t even look at her as he throws her in the fire. There are no screams.  
  
Joan slowly sits up, the arrow gone from her neck. The wound is rapidly healing. He holds out his knife and jumps toward her. She is quicker.   
  
She pushes him back toward the fire but he turns them, grabbing onto her fur coat. He throws her toward the flames. She flies over them in an impressive display.  
  
“Shit.”  
  
She’s powerful, there’s no doubt, but he can’t risk this now. A witch with this much power can’t be left to live.   
  
A branch flies toward him and he ducks, but it scrapes across his back. He yells. He rolls backward and ducks behind a tree, wishing his crossbow wasn’t left so far away. Ben considers his options. Wait her out, dodge branches and fire and whatever else she can throw at him. He can throw his knife at the first sight of her. He could try to get to his bow. None of those work for him, really. He’s fucked.  
  
“I know you,” she calls. He doesn’t answer, tries to gauge where she is. “You’re dating Leslie Knope.”  
  
His stomach drops while his heart picks up. The gash on his back burns and everything feels like it’s sideways.  
  
“Don’t hurt her,” he yells. A plea of an idiot.  
  
She laughs. She’s moving, he follows the sound.  
  
“Is that what this is about? I’ve never heard of you, you must not be a hunter. You’re here to protect Leslie.”  
  
He shakes her off, unsure of what she means. She’s just trying to get in his head. Distract him long enough to take him down. It’s working. He blinks and focuses. He sees her shift through the trees and he raises his knife.  
  
“You’re mistaken,” he says.  
  
“Interesting. I can’t wait to break this story.”  
  
“I can’t wait to tell everyone what you are.”  
  
“Touché.”   
  
Another branch flies at him and he dodges it.   
  
“Let me put a name to that adorable face, hunter.”  
  
He scoffs.   
  
“Fine.” He hears a pop. “Have it your way.”  
  
His own bow shoots at him. Ben rolls away and ducks behind a tree. Another arrow shoots into the trunk.   
  
He should’ve brought Chris.  
  
Ben rounds the tree, until the bullets stop, leaving a circle of arrows in the bark. He faces the fire and there she is, standing menacingly, the flames lighting her face. She tips down her chin and looks at him with her red eyes. In a panic, Ben draws back his knife and throws. Joan catches it.  
  
He must look like a scared child. He feels like it.  
  
He reaches for his extra blade. She throws his back first. It hits his shoulder and he yells as he stumbles back into the trunk of the tree. He slides down, watching the blood seep out of the wound, into his shirt, feels it roll down his skin.  
  
Ben looks up at Joan, stalking over to him. She shoves him, scratching him down his cheek with one of her nails.  
  
“Enjoy death, hunter. You deserve to take it slow and watch me escape.” She kicks him in the stomach. All his air is gone, replaced by the throb of pain. “That was for Marcia.”  
  
Ben tries to regain his breath as he watches her walk backwards, turning on her heels. Joan waves her hand over the flames and they burn out, leaving him in darkness. Her footsteps fade and he is alone.  
  
To die.  
  


~~

  
  
Susie never knows.  
  
He meets her at one of those lame singles events. It’s Chris’ idea and Ben hates the whole thing.   
  
Until he meets her.   
  
Tall, brunette, with cheekbones that beg for his lips. She laughs at his stupid jokes and when her hand lingers on his forearm, he knows he’s in the right place at the right time.  
  
Susie gives Ben a new iPod for Christmas and they spend their Saturdays trying to find any new restaurant they can. He still travels. Sometimes Susie comes, sometimes she stays. She never really cares. Not until their third anniversary. He never shows.  
  
Ben runs to the brand new restaurant, three hours late, as if she’d still be there. She isn’t. He goes to her house and finds her, miserable and with a half bottle of wine on the coffee table.  
  
“I’m so sorry,” he says after an eternity of silence.  
  
Susie takes a sip of wine. She rubs her lips together, furious. She shakes her head and flicks her brown eyes to him.  
  
“I don’t mind, Ben,” she says. “I don’t mind that you love to travel, that you often work late into the evening, even though I don’t understand it. You’re an accountant!” She raises her hands and they slap on her lap in disbelief. “What could you possibly be doing that late?”  
  
“I--”  
  
“Save it. I’ve come up with every conclusion imaginable and really, at this point, it can’t just be work. It’s something else, and that’s fine, Ben. You’ve chosen.” Susie stands and walks to her front door, opening it. “So have I.”  
  
“Susie, don’t do this. Please, I’ll make it up to you.”  
  
She shakes her head and waits. Susie is headstrong and smart and beautiful, and all of that radiates out of her now. No amount of pleading can bring her back to him.   
  
He whispers a goodbye as he passes her and stands in the hallway of her building. The door shuts and he hears all three locks click. Ben feels empty, hollow and beaten.  
  
It never occurs to him to explain it all to her, to tell her the truth.  
  
He likes to think he knew she was determined, that she already made up her mind. Telling her wouldn’t solve it, solve them. That’s true, but he also learns that if he’s going to be with someone for real, they must know. It will never work if they don’t.  
  


~~

  
  
Ben’s drifting in and out of consciousness; aware of the passing of time due to the sun’s slow rise. He blinks and takes steadying breaths, drags himself across the ground. His cellphone has no reception.   
  
What a shitty way to die. Of all the ways he could’ve gone down, this is possibly the worst. He fought, yes, but foolishly and entirely out of anger and spite. Revenge and sadness.   
  
A man who finds peace in writing Star Trek fan fiction, traveling the country, and killing witches, is left to die because he falls in love. Ben has always been a bitter guy, even in elementary school, he cursed the apples for not being ripe enough and swore under his breath when his crayon sharpener broke. This world is unfair. Always has been.   
  
He coughs. She’s here. Leslie. Beautifully lit by the even glow of the morning sun. The clouds haven’t parted yet, and the sun is still moving upwards and it is a perfect look on her. It reminds him of the mornings when she stood in front of her kitchen window, making coffee while he cracked eggs. Her hair is up like she sometimes wears in the morning, a simple ponytail with little waves falling out of it to frame her face. No makeup, no fanfare. Just a pair of jeans and an old Pawnee Porpoises t-shirt that looks like it is from her youth. It fits snugger now. Holds her shape in a loose caress.   
  
He knows he’s dying, because he is seeing her how he always wanted to: lazily domestic and perfect. At ease, and completely his.  
  
“Ben,” she says. His name is warped, like he’s hearing it through plastic that is being molded and curved.  
  
He tries to say her name but he just breaths. She comes toward him. The closer she gets, the fuzzier she becomes. He can hear her talking rapidly now, panicked. But still so pretty; so, so pretty.  
  
Ben tries to say he loves her. He tries so fucking hard but it won’t come out. It’s too hard to do anything. She is close to his face now, telling him something with great urgency and importance. He wishes he could hear her.  
  
She moves him to his back and he winces in pain. So real, she must be real. This is real.   
  
Then she pulls out the knife from his shoulder and it’s like he’s being stabbed all over again. He yells.  
  
“Shh, Ben. It’s okay.” Like a fucking song.  
  
She puts her hand over his wound and another to his chest. He watches her look to the sky before her eyelids close. Her brows furrow and her mouth is firm with a small pout. Something in him shifts, a faint buzz or rush of adrenaline that takes a long time to catch up to him. His wounds feel like they’re not so much searing with pain, but slowly numbing.  
  
His body starts to feel reawakened, like he’s just had a long nap or an undisturbed night’s sleep. He blinks rapidly, trying to catch up to it all, trying to understand what is happening. As soon as he starts to pull himself together, starts to really focus on Leslie, it all stops. It’s like a pop inside him and he’s fine. Better, even. Like the night’s events didn’t happen.   
  
Leslie lets go of him and he scrambles up. No pain or aches, nothing. Ben unzips his hoodie and rips open the hole left behind in the shoulder of his t-shirt. Nothing. No wound. He reaches up his back and finds the skin smooth.   
  
His breaths come so fast. His heart won’t stop pounding. It’s in his ears, along his veins, thumping in his temples and wrists. He can feel it, every push of blood, every thump of his heart. The world is tilting and he can’t stay upright. He looks at her again, trying to find the words, the questions, the understanding.  
  
Leslie looks at him, her eyes big with relief. He reaches for her. Her own hand twitches to meet his touch but she stops. He groans.  
  
“Leslie,” he says.   
  
She nods and looks to the ground, the fallen pieces of hair cascading forward. He follows the movements of her lips as she speaks.  
  
“I’m a witch,” she says. It’s sure and proud, but the quiet way she says it lets him know that she wishes she didn’t have to say it, wishes it didn’t matter as much as it does. Her eyes flick up, peeking through her golden waves. “I’m sorry.”  
  
Everything goes black.  
  


~~

  
  
"Ben Wyatt!"  
  
It’s too early for this. For any human being. Even super cyborg-like humans like Chris.   
  
“Let’s go!”  
  
Chris throws the covers off of Ben and starts singing a song about the morning, jogging, and how great the grass smells. Ben is almost positive this is a Chris Traeger original song.  
  
Ben’s been living with Chris for only a week. Every day it’s the same. Get up at an ungodly hour, go for a run, strength training, and review an assortment of weapons that even make a murderer like Ben gasp when he sees them. Everything about living with Chris is insane and shocking. Most notably, the fact that Ben is now being trained to be a witch hunter.  
  
It all sounds so fantasy and weird (like he’s living in one of his own fan fiction stories, or inside a George R.R. Martin novel), but he tries to keep a grip on reality. He learns about the different kinds of witches, but holds his cup of coffee as if it will make it seem more real. He shoots a crossbow and then watches the clouds move to keep him rooted.   
  
He knows witches are real, he knows he’s a killer, but this all seems wrong anyway.   
  
After their run, and the crazy amount of sit ups, planks, push ups, and squats, Ben lies on the floor of the living room, defeated. The idea of going through more tactics, history, or even weapon assembly, makes his entire body ache. He’s such a wimpy, small guy. He isn’t made for this.   
  
Chris’ offer was a simple one: join him, be his partner in this, and reap the rewards of revenge. Ben took it, hungry to fill that void once and for all. Now he works with individuals with too much money to know what to do with while living with Chris, learning the ins and outs of witch hunting and trying to turn his scrawny body into something strong.  
  
But the training isn’t forever, it’s only a couple months, and then they are on the road. And Ben learns about Chris. Learns about his family’s history with witches and their quest for their demise. He learns it does plague Chris, that he feels the guilt sometimes, too, but like Ben, knows he’s doing the right thing.   
  
There’s other stuff, too. Like how Chris is always there for Ben, how he’s saved his life over and over again. He helps him when numbers don’t work right in his head, and Ben listens to Chris’ speeches until they’re perfected.   
  
Chris becomes more of a brother to Ben than Henry ever was. Henry and Ben should’ve bonded, should’ve connected through every tragedy and subsequent hardship. But they never did, just two ships passing in the night, avoiding each other’s ghosts.  
  
It’s okay, Ben thinks, because he has Chris. Chris is his family now. The family Ben left behind isn’t really even a unit anymore. His mother has disappeared inside herself, Henry lives in Europe, and his father sleeps with anything that can walk. It’s his father’s own way of coping, Ben guesses. It’s not much better than what Ben’s doing.  
  
In fact, Ben is probably the only one who hasn’t moved on. He’s the only one carrying this around like a keepsake he just can’t part with. He’s a hoarder, an emotional one, tucking away everything and keeping it with him just because it’s easier than letting go.  
  
Chris helps him see that killing really can be easier than the alternative. So easy. Ben never searches for another way, never resolves to find happiness anywhere else. He’ll just keep surviving the only way he knows how, until something -- or someone -- shows him a different way.

~~

When Ben opens his eyes, he sees a blur of yellow.  
  
Leslie is sitting on her coffee table, legs bent over the side. Her elbows are digging into the top of her thighs, face in her hands, hair falling forward. She’s in the same clothes as before, but her hair is down. It’s a mess, like she’s been raking her fingers through it, pulling it.   
  
He’s in her house, the living room, reclined on the couch. The view is sideways. He’s been in this position before, nestling his head in her lap while she reads. Her fingers would play with his hair, scratch his scalp. He ignored the world there, among the soft warmth of her lap and the light trace of her fingers. Just Leslie and Ben, nothing else mattered.  
  
Ben’s arms are sore and when he moves to stretch them, he finds himself restrained. Ropes. They aren’t tied too tight, neither are the ones around his ankles. She doesn’t mean to hurt him, or to keep him uncomfortable, she’s just protecting herself. Giving herself a few seconds in case he tries anything.   
  
If he tries to kill her.  
  
Ben closes his eyes. Leslie is a witch. The words repeat in his mind on a frightening loop. His stomach churns, he starts to sweat, his head begins to pound. He replays their relationship, examines every moment, and tries to find the clues. Except for the movie night when she had to leave, nothing sticks out. His insides churn. What did she do that night? Was she kidnapping children? Plotting with other witches? He can’t imagine it, he can’t even try to pretend to see her among the witches he’s killed. Even though he watched her heal him, felt her strength course through him, he still can’t place her within the category of those he’s killed.  
  
She healed him. He’s still alive. He isn’t fighting for his life, he isn’t being left for dead. This feels completely different, just like Leslie always has. She’s been different since he saw her at the bar, trying to push Ann across the floor to meet Chris. The way their kisses surged and his skin always buzzed beneath her touch, the honest way she speaks, the way she constantly loops in his head. She’s always been different and special, of course she’d be a different kind of witch. He knows that already, and he’s only known for a conscious 10 minutes.  
  
Ben tries to stretch his arm again but groans at the tug. Leslie’s head pops up, eyes frantic. She stands and steps behind the coffee table as if it will protect them from each other.  
  
“Leslie,” he chokes. He realizes now how dry his throat and mouth are.  
  
She rubs her thumb along the outside hem of her jeans, right along her thigh. Her stare is constant on his and he loves just looking into her blue eyes. He’s missed them.  
  
“Are… are you okay?” she asks. She scrunches her face and shakes her head, disappointed in her words. “I almost called my mom.”  
  
“Is she…?” He really needs water.  
  
Leslie nods and then begins to pace. She’s toppling over with nervous energy and he can feel it moving through the air. Is this something that comes with her powers? Does she send out energy like this? Was he always supposed to notice? If so, why didn’t he?  
  
“Leslie.” She stops. “Can I have some water?”  
  
“Oh,” she says. “Sure, yes, uh, of course.” Leslie quickly walks to the kitchen and he hears her moving around. Ben struggles to sit up. When she returns, he’s slumped over on the couch, almost all the way up. “Oh, let me, I just--” Leslie puts the glass of water down on the coffee table, sighing. “I’m sorry, I panicked.”  
  
Leslie helps him sit up and reaches behind him. She unties him. He senses her fear, sees it in her eyes as she pulls away from him, her glare constant on his face.  
  
Ben wants to tell her he won’t hurt her, but can he make that promise? He did, when he told her, but that was before. Before he knew what she was. But being without Leslie for two weeks put his life to a stand still. It suddenly held no meaning, it was empty, even killing Marcia didn’t come with that flash of satisfaction. He could blame Joan’s cleverness and finesse for that, but he knows it’s more than that.   
  
“Leslie, I love you.”  
  
It just comes out of him, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world to say. He says it even though he knows what she is, even though he knows what he swore, even though his throat feels like it’s made of flaming sandpaper. He tries to swallow, but it hurts. He wants to tell her again, wants her to react in a different way. So he does. Her eyes open, glossy.  
  
She rubs her lips together, looking to the ceiling. She blinks her tears back. When she speaks, her voice wobbles.  
  
“There’s your water.”  
  
His heart breaks, right into a million pieces.  
  
Suddenly, the water isn’t very important anymore.  
  
“Leslie, please, let me explain this time.” Every word is painful but he needs to tell her. He bends down and unties the ropes from his ankles.  
  
“Please don’t get up.”  
  
Ben tips his head up and looks at her. She stands straight and tight, ready for whatever he may deliver to her. He’s unarmed and weak, dehydrated and sore. And she still fears him. Him, Ben Wyatt, the man who kissed her eyelids in the middle of the night, his fingers traveling slowly down her stomach. The guy she pulled through a park so they could have a picnic. The man who drew bubble baths, cooked spaghetti, licked whipped cream off her skin, wiped away her tears during Up, received her kisses, both fiery and sugary sweet.   
  
“I won’t hurt you,” he says, “I don’t care that you’re…”  
  
She whips her head up and looks at him, waits for him to say it, as if this moment could wash away all her doubt.  
  
But he doesn’t finish and the uncertainty hangs in the air. It’s as if his head caught up with his heart and he can’t finish the thought. The very obvious thought. The thought of a life without her. Impossible.  
  
“Just sit there and let me talk,” Leslie says, her hand out.   
  
He waits, watches her take a breath.  
  
“I am a witch,” she says, confirming everything he knows, solidifying it again. She told him in the forest, but this is the first time he can really digest the words and hear them crystal clear. “And all my life I have been told to keep my mouth shut about it because of threats. Witches like Tammy and warlocks like Dexhart. But there was something else. Hunters.”  
  
Leslie motions toward him but quickly takes her hand back, like she, too doesn’t want to believe he is what she most fears.  
  
“My mom said that hunters are scared of us. She said it didn’t matter who I was, or how I used my powers, that they would kill me anyway.” She turns and looks at him. “That you would kill me anyway.”  
  
Ben pushes off the couch but she tenses again. He sits back down. “No, I won’t do--”  
  
Leslie smiles, shaking her head. “You won’t even say that I am a witch, Ben. If the only thing you knew about me was that I was a witch, I would be dead by now.”  
  
She’s right. She’s absolutely right.  
  
“How many have you killed?” she asks.  
  
He has no idea. He’s lost count years ago.   
  
“I don’t know.” He leans forward. “Leslie, please--”  
  
“Drink some water.”  
  
He does.   
  
“Can I--”  
  
“I just don’t understand how I didn’t see it,” she says. He doesn’t know how he didn’t see it either. “You’re nothing like what I pictured. You’re sweet, you’re geeky, and self deprecating. You read me the newspaper while I made coffee, I fell for you over and over again every time I watched you walk around my house in your boxers. This just doesn’t make sense, how could you be a cold, callous murderer? You can be a jerk about certain things, but not someone capable of murder.”  
  
“But I am, Leslie, I’ve… I’ve killed so many people.” He hangs his head and takes a breath. “But you are, too.”  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“You’re capable of murder.”  
  
“It doesn’t mean I’ve murdered anyone!” she yells. “How dare you. This is why I can’t just ignore this. You make snap judgements about us and they aren’t true. I’ve never killed anyone in my life! I save people.”  
  
Her cheeks are flaming red and her breaths are big and rapid. He shakes his head.   
  
“You what?” Ben asks.  
  
“I save people. I healed you in the forest and I have been doing that since I met Ann. It helps me cope.”  
  
As if he needed more confirmation that she isn’t right for him, she lays it on the table. He doesn’t know what she’s coping with, but it doesn’t matter. Her method of coping is to give people life. His is to take it.  
  
He tightens the muscles in his arms and squeezes his fingers together before flexing them out again.  
  
“Damnit!” Ben slams his fist into the coffee table. The pain shoots up his arm. “What was I supposed to do? They just took her.”  
  
“Took who, Ben?” Her voice is soft and kind, nothing he deserves, especially from her.  
  
“Nothing, forget it.”   
  
He stands, risking her reaction. She doesn’t do anything though, just lets him gain his balance and pass her. He grabs the doorknob before she says anything.  
  
“Don’t go.”  
  
“I won’t hurt you, Leslie, I don’t give a fuck that you’re a witch.” Something in her softens, like he was right, that just him admitting to what she is, is enough for her to let him in. “But this? This isn’t going to work. No matter how much I love you, it’s not going to work.”  
  
He yanks open the door and walks away from her, from his only salvation. She calls after him but he doesn’t stop.  
  
Until she’s in front of him, quicker than he can blink.  
  
“Holy shit--Leslie--”  
  
“Took who? Who did they take?”  
  
“It doesn’t matter, Leslie, the things I’ve done--”  
  
“Ben, will you just tell me?” She takes a calming breath but nothing about it actually calms her. “If you loved me, you’d tell me. You’d fight for me and make me understand.”  
  
He thinks about telling her that she didn’t want to hear him out two weeks ago, or that she ignored all his attempts to do just that since she left him broken on her front porch. But it seems futile. Obviously, something has switched, something that is just enough to gain him entrance again. And she’s right, if he loved her, he would tell her. This might be his only chance, and if she still doesn’t take him back, at least one person will believe him.   
  
“My sister,” he says. “They took my sister.”  
  


~~

  
  
Ben is 10, Henry is 15, and little Stephanie is only 11 months.  
  
When Ben is older, he’ll realize Stephanie was the last ditch effort to save his parents’ marriage. But right now, staying up late with Henry watching Star Wars while his parents go on a date, he doesn’t give much thought to why his sister is so much younger than him.  
  
They’re eating junk food. Bags of Cheetos, Twizzlers, and Doritos are scattered on the table along with the baby monitor. Every once in awhile, the monitor lets out a static hiss, but since Henry put Stephanie down, she hasn’t made a peep.   
  
Ben’s saying the lines of the movie in time with the actors and Henry keeps telling him to shut up. Ben still does it, it’s second nature by now, but he tries to remember to whisper.   
  
Despite Henry’s badgering, the night is peaceful. Ben is blissfully happy, staying up late and eating garbage while watching his favorite movie. He read Batman comics while Henry put Stephanie down, had ice cream for dinner, and dinner was an entire extra large pizza just for the boys. His parents weren’t fighting, or berating him for his laziness, they weren’t even in the house. Amazing.  
  
Henry is in the kitchen, on the phone with his girlfriend when the movie ends. Ben lets the credits roll, enjoying the music of John Williams. He hums it and digs into a half empty bag of Doritos, stuffing a handful of chips in his mouth.   
  
The baby monitor starts to buzz. It lasts longer than the usual static. Ben sits up, rubbing the crumbs from his hands. He taps the monitor, and it buzzes louder, the static at a new high pitched note. Ben cringes.  
  
He mumbles something about how ancient the thing is and turns it down. The static lingers, just softer, until it suddenly stops. There’s two bangs upstairs, right above his head. One sounds like it is rattling the side of the house and the other has to be something falling to the floor. The light above him shakes.  
  
Ben stands up, his heart beating against his ribcage with rapid force.   
  
“Henry,” he says. He moves to the stairs. “Henry!”  
  
Henry sticks his head out from the kitchen, phone to his ear. “What?”  
  
“Stephanie,” Ben warns and runs up the stairs.  
  
Ben doesn’t think much about consequences, like if someone really is in his sister’s bedroom, what he’ll do. He’s a scrawny kid, with no fighting skills except for what he imitates with his plastic lightsaber. He dropped out of karate on the second class. But he swings her door open anyway.  
  
As soon as he sees her, he’s pushed back, right into the wall. His back smashes into the framed pictures of cartoon teddy bears. The woman’s eyes are lit bright red. Her lips are curled up in a devilish smile, her hair dark and wild with curls. It might be the movie, but his first thought is she is a Jedi, using the force to keep him pinned to the wall, his feet dangling above the floor.   
  
She turns away and Ben is still hanging. Henry runs into the room and Ben watches his body fly into the bookcase. Mom set up the bookcase like something out of a magazine, with trinkets and books at a slant angle. It’s trashed now, Henry’s limp body in the midst.   
  
“No!”  
  
The woman grabs Stephanie. His sister cries so loud it rattles in his ears, splits his soul in half. Ben struggles against his invisible restraints. He kicks the wall, pounds his fists onto the broken glass that hangs behind him. This woman, she walks so effortlessly, like she’s almost gliding, and she looks at Ben as his whole world comes undone.  
  
Stephanie, in her polka dot pajamas, cries and cries. Her skin starts to glow. It’s a dim shift in pigment, but what makes Ben’s mouth go dry and his heart stop is the color of her veins. They turn a cruel red, line all over her body, pulsing like her heart beat controls the fading in and out of brightness. He’s pleading with the woman, who shifts her stare to his baby sister like she’s starving for her.   
  
Stephanie continues to glow, her veins pulsing, and her cries jarring. The woman holds Stephanie so close, and it’s almost like, with each breath Stephanie takes, the woman becomes stronger and bigger, even if she isn’t growing in actual physical form. Everything about this is incomprehensible, unbelievable, something straight out of a comic book or a horror movie. He keeps trying to wake up, willing his eyes to open and for this all to be a terrible nightmare.  
  
Slowly, Stephanie’s cries start to peter out and her breaths come slower, something he only notices because they match the soft blink of her veins. The light there is also starting to darken and that can only mean--  
  
“Stop! Please!” Ben begs.  
  
The woman flashes her menacing eyes at him before she shuts them, looking to the floor. She mumbles something he doesn’t understand and the walls begin to shake and he’s rattling along with them. Wind picks up the woman’s hair and it flies back and up, creating an even crazier scene than before.   
  
Ben isn’t sure how long the wind whips or the walls rattle but all in one breath, it suddenly stops. He’s trying to regain control of his breathing, trying to focus on the woman in front of him and his sister, who looks like herself again. She looks peaceful, asleep, or--  
  
“Put her down.”  
  
The woman laughs, a sound that could deplete the world of happiness. She clutches Stephanie tighter. Ben feels even more constricted against the wall.   
  
“I don’t think so,” she says.  
  
“Take me!”  
  
She shakes her head, snarling as if he is rancid. “Too old for him.”  
  
Ben doesn’t know why he’s interrogating her, but he yells, “For who?”  
  
She walks toward him and grips his arm, digging her nail into the flesh. It burns, and when she pulls away, he feels the blood trickle down his skin.   
  
“Why, the devil himself,” she says, “who else?”  
  
Ben tries to respond, tries to figure this out, put the puzzle pieces of this hellish nightmare together. But it doesn’t matter, he doesn’t have the time, or the power. The woman glides to the window and Ben only feels the scrape of his plea against his throat before the woman -- the witch -- takes flight into the night. With Stephanie.  
  
Ben falls to the ground with a hard thud. He scrambles up on shaking legs and flies down the stairs, pushing through the front door in his bare feet. He runs across the lawn and looks up into the sky. He crosses the street and keeps running, runs forever, until he no longer knows where he is. When he trips over a curb, he stays on the sidewalk and cries.   
  
That’s where he is found, by a policewoman who has been called by a concerned citizen. He tells her over and over again that the police need to find his sister. He spends a few hours at the police station, given new clothes, and some crayons and paper to bide his time. He tells two police officers what happened in Stephanie’s bedroom, then three more detectives. He screams it at his mom when she finally arrives.  
  
No one believes him. All they believe is that a woman took her, with a description that matches Ben’s testimony. Ben sees a therapist until he’s 18. He chooses to stop going. Everyone says the same, that he embellished the story to hide whatever real horrors happened that night. That his brain couldn’t fathom the terror or the trauma and his mind filled in the blanks.   
  
But Ben researches, he figures out that these witches are real, that their powers are the same as the woman’s, that they use babies as sacrifice to keep their debts to the devil or for eternal youth or strength. He watches those around him, tries to figure out who is a witch or warlock, and who is just human.   
  
He does doubt himself. Therapists can get in his head and he can’t pull himself out. It all comes together when he finds Cindy, levitating and chanting in the school bathroom on prom night. The door is open, presumably pushed open by her powers on accident. He watches her for a moment, makes sure it’s all real. He felt her up only two weeks ago, and a week after that she turned him down for that stupid dance.   
  
Ben doesn’t do anything, just waits until it’s all too much. He’s read that witches like the seclusion of forests and being close to nature. He finds her among the trees and kills her.  
  
He does it again and again, but nothing brings Stephanie back.   
  


~~

  
  
When he’s finished, they are back at her front door. His hands are shaking. They both look at them. He shakes his head, says he has to go.  
  
“You cannot leave like this.” Leslie touches his fingers and he can’t help it, he lets out a breath and almost crumbles into her.  
  
“I should really go, I need to talk to Chris.”  
  
“It can wait, it has to wait, you’re shaking.”  
  
Ben lets her guide him inside. He sits on the couch. She rummages through the kitchen and he waits for her to return. He stares at his hands. They continue to tremble.  
  
Leslie just listened to him. She didn’t say anything, didn’t interject or ask questions. When he paused to catch his breath, to remember a specific detail, she just waited him out, stared ahead as they walked around her block. He looked at her sometimes, and found her not shocked or struck by his story. It’s like she was familiar with the whole thing. Not unphased, just prepared, like she heard his story before. A story like it, maybe.  
  
He is grateful. Grateful for the pushback of her tears, the lack of questions, how she just took it all. She didn’t need anything in return, she just grabbed his words and horrors from the air and kept them guarded close to her. She lightened the load, she holds it all, for keeps.  
  
Ben adds to the ever-growing pile of things he loves about Leslie Knope. Right now, just like the last two weeks, adding onto it is painful. Every reason is heavily loaded with doubt. It’s impossible, it’s terrifying, it’s making him unbearably sad.  
  
Leslie returns with two mugs of hot chocolate. She places them onto the coffee table. His is dusted with a couple mini marshmallows. Hers has a pile of whipped cream on top, complete with a mini marshmallow cap.  
  
He reaches and touches her mug, rubs his thumb along the warm ceramic, right over the Pawnee seal. His thumb pushes up, takes a swipe of the whipped cream, and he licks it off his skin.   
  
He’s missed this taste.  
  
She reaches out and takes her mug as Ben sits back. He runs his hands through his hair, stretches his neck, tries to get his fingers to stop shaking. They don’t. Leslie takes a sip, puts the mug back down, and turns toward him, crossing her legs.  
  
“I should tell you something,” she says. He almost tells her she doesn’t have to, that he’s enjoying her silent comfort, but she continues. “When I was 10, my dad was killed.”  
  
The tremors become worse but he listens. His eyes intently watch the movement of her fingers, the rise and fall of her chest. He feels for the way the air shifts in her speech and in her breathing patterns. He hears the tremble in her chin. He hears the mixture of doubt, grief, and pride in her voice. She tells him everything.  
  
Tells him how her father died in a car accident and she begged her mother to bring back his life, how she spent her entire life hiding from people like Ben and people like those he’s murdered. She explains how she gains her powers, how her mother showed her, how her father always called them, ‘his witches.’ Ben’s heart breaks as she tells him about how lonely Christmas always was after his death. His soul lifts when she tells him about the people she’s saved. It’s all so backwards from him. It’s all so beautiful.   
  
By the time she’s done, they’re both crying. Not the hard, grief stricken sobs that tore at him when he was 10 on the middle of a sidewalk. Just trembling chins and softly falling tears. There’s a tightness in the back of his throat that won’t go away no matter how many times he swallows. At some point their fingers intertwine.  
  
It feels so fucking good. It’s an instant heat, a familiar and comforting pulse between them. He rubs his thumbs on the top of her hands, moves their fingers and palms together, traces lines around her wrists like phantom bracelets. Her breath catches as he touches certain patches of skin and his fingers stop trembling once she starts rubbing her hands up his forearms. Then his biceps.   
  
Leslie pushes up onto her knees so she can reach his shoulders. She rubs them with her palm, nothing like a massage and everything like he needs. Her fingers trace designs into his neck. He shivers and sighs. She scoops her hands under the collar of his shirt and reaches farther down his back, over his shoulders, down his chest. She’s closer to him now. Every inhale comes with the scent of her shampoo, the soap he’s borrowed, the smell of chocolate and sugar from her breath.   
  
Leslie is careful to keep her face at an angle, or lifted above his. The moment is intimate regardless. It’s quiet and her hands are smooth and sure against his skin. Her hands slip out of his shirt just as he gains the courage to gently place his on her thighs.   
  
They share a glance before Leslie’s eyes fall to his torso and his to her thighs. His hands are stagnant there, huge compared to the small width and length of her legs.  
  
Then they undress. It’s slow and quiet, and still no one is acknowledging what the other is or how they’re relationship hangs on an ambiguous hook. Leslie lifts his shirt first and and he follows the lead with hers. Leslie unclasps her bra but Ben does the rest of the work, sliding the straps down her arms and placing it on the coffee table. Her skin has faint red lines where her bra hugged her, where the straps dug into her shoulders. He wants to kiss every mark.  
  
Leslie stands and grabs his hand, leading him upstairs. At the top, she lets go and he hears her zipper and she wiggles free of her jeans as she closes the door. She left the underwear for him. He pushes them down, his thumbs tucked into the sides. Leslie steps out of them as she undoes his own pair of jeans. They slide off and he toes out of his shoes as he steps out of his pants.   
  
Ben’s heart is racing but he’s no longer shaking. Seeing her again is so overwhelming. Everything he has bottled for years is now stirring at the surface, circling his emotions like a shark. Leslie has goosebumps and her chest moves rapidly with her breathing.   
  
Leslie takes a step toward him. “Say something.”  
  
It’s the first time either of them has spoken since Leslie’s story. Ben reaches out and finally touches the smooth skin of her hips, moves his hands up to her waist, circles his hands to the small of her back, and pulls her into him.  
  
What can he say to her? Nothing amounts to everything he feels, how deep his love for her has grown in just the span of hours. And before? Before it was already rooted, now the roots are tangling inside his bones, threading through his organs, the sap running through his veins. He’s done, he’s empty, he only has her now.   
  
So he just says, “Please,” as if she’ll understand. Understand that he needs this, that he needs her, and that if she just waits a little bit longer, he can catch up and make this right.  
  
They kiss. He doesn’t know who started it. So quickly they are one, moving in a slow, grieving movement of limbs and skin and lips. He places her on the bed and crawls up her body, leaving a trail of soft kisses behind. Once he reaches her lips, he kisses her there, too. She opens her mouth to him, but his tongue only teases her. Lines her lips, gives her tongue the briefest of touches.   
  
They roll and Leslie is on top of him. She kisses down his stomach, kisses his dick, lines him with her tongue in delicate caresses. When she takes him in her mouth, it’s unbelievably warm and almost painfully slow. But it gives him something to focus on. Each millimeter of skin getting her touch just a little at a time. It’s intoxicating.   
  
Somehow, he climbs. It’s a steady push that travels from every limb to the center of his body. Even as his orgasm closes in, it’s not the usual rapid push of heat, shaking and pulses. The usual numbness travels along his muscles. He’s practically floating.  
  
Leslie stops. Her tongue is the last to leave him. He hasn’t cum but he feels just as relaxed and fueled with ecstasy as if he had. He grabs Leslie by the arms and pulls her up, kissing her.  
  
They roll onto their sides, tangling legs and trying to get their bodies to be as close as possible. If he could gel them together, he would.  
  
Leslie turns away from him, grabbing his arms as he whimpers, wrapping them around her waist. He presses every part of him into every part of her. His face to her hair, his chest to her back, his dick to her ass, his legs tangled with hers. He touches her all over; spreads his fingers over her stomach, her breasts, her thighs, her hips. Their bodies rock to create just enough friction and pressure. Leslie moans and Ben sighs. He smooths down her body a little and opens her legs, scooping his hips beneath her.   
  
Ben’s fingers trace her, test her. She’s ready. Wet, warm, everything he remembers.   
  
They spend a few minutes just rocking and trying to align their bodies right and when they both feel it, him perfect right at her opening, starting to stretch her, they both take a breath, letting it out when they come together.  
  
He pulls out and thrusts back in, in a smooth, tentative motion. She moans and he buries his face into the back of her neck, kissing her there, tangling his lips with hair and skin. He moves, rocks and thrusts into her and her ass pushes back, giving just as much as he does, taking just as much as he is. It’s soft and charged. It feels perfect.  
  
It helps him forget. He doesn’t worry about what they are what he’s done, what she’s done, what they’ve both been through. It’s only skin, her heat, her fingers threading with his over her breast, the push of air from his mouth that makes her hair move across her neck, the whisper of his name. He tells her he loves her because he can’t help it, can’t help but let anything trickle out of him now. She holds onto him tighter, starts rocking her hips a little faster. They keep a steady rhythm that is more exploratory than anything else.   
  
Until she turns her head back, and he sees her precious profile, and she pleads, “Faster.”  
  
He grabs her leg and drapes it over his waist and does as she wishes. His hand glides down her stomach and he pushes a finger against her clit. Her foot shakes, she wiggles against him, and it’s almost like before they knew everything. Except she’s not screaming his name and he’s not clutching onto her waist with aggressive want. It’s still slower, more like a healing process than sex, and he’s devouring every drop of this elixir.  
  
He can’t mistake that Leslie is climbing, he feels the familiar rise in her, but when she cums, it seems too soon and calm. Her body clenches for only a moment and then she becomes completely relaxed, moaning a long, steady sound that vibrates against his chest. His name comes out when she catches her breath, still riding it out. It lasts a long time, and when she’s done she just curls her arm back so she can dig her fingers into his hair.   
  
She is still throbbing around him as he speeds up and finishes, emptying inside her. Ben clutches her, keeps her as close as he can, doesn’t pull out of her until he absolutely has to. When he does, she quickly turns to face him and they tangle into each other, sweat and juices rubbing against joined skin. He kisses her forehead. Her lips pucker against his chest.  
  
Ben inhales her scent, all of it. He blinks his eyes open and watches the breeze catch the curtains. He catches movement in the corner of his eye. His eyes flick and land on a floating birdhouse.  
  
“Leslie.”  
  
“Hm?”   
  
“There’s a birdhouse floating in here.”  
  
She snorts and he laughs and soon the air in the room starts to lighten, the thick fog of grief and desperation slipping through the open window. Leslie turns in his arms and looks at the birdhouse. It slowly glides down to the ground.  
  
“Something about you,” she says, turning back to him, “makes me unable to focus.”  
  
He snuggles into her again, clutches her so she fits back into his chest, tucked under his chin.   
  
“Our first night together, when the power went out--”  
  
“You?”  
  
“Me.”  
  
He kisses her forehead and drags a finger down her spine. Back up. “You can say you love me.”  
  
She giggles into his chest and shakes her head. “No I can’t.”  
  
“Why not?” he asks.  
  
He should be questioning this, he should be apprehensive, he should be finding a way to untangle their bodies.   
  
“Because I feel like my world is upside down, everything is a mess, and I need like fifty binders and a million pros and cons lists to make this okay.”  
  
The hurt trickles in his heart, but he can feel this, this thing that brews inside them, connects them infinitely. So he’ll wait. He waited this long for this joy, he can wait longer.  
  
“I have to go, anyway. I can leave you to your paperwork.” He pulls from her but she whimpers, clutching to him.  
  
“Ugh. Then you do something as stupid, like try to leave,” she says, “and it’s like logic and trusted organizational skills don’t matter anymore.”  
  
Ben rolls them until he’s on top of her. “Thank you,” he says.  
  
Leslie tilts her head and her nose scrunches. He kisses it as she asks, “For what?”  
  
He wants to tell her for everything, for the chance to fall in love with her, for giving and taking with such conviction, for being herself, every part of herself. But instead he follows the tilt of her head and whispers against her lips.  
  
“For the hot chocolate.”  
  


~~

  
  
Chris’ father dies in July of Ben’s fifth year with Chris.  
  
Chris openly weeps for two days, curled in bed, curtains drawn, swallowed by darkness. Ben tries to get him to eat, tries to get him to take a run, but nothing works. Ben arranges their flights and packs Chris’ suitcase. He’s watched him do it enough to know.  
  
On the fourth day, Chris is not his usual self but he is up and out of bed. He showers and eats. They go to the airport in silence, wait in silence, ride the plane in silence.   
  
It’s no mystery how Chris’ father was killed. But it’s not his official cause of death.   
  
The funeral is small and Chris is stoic through the whole thing. He speaks, no notecards or a piece of paper in front of him. Straight from the heart, right where Chris always lives.  
  
Ben lingers, staring at the hole in the ground. That could be him, that could be Chris. He went down fighting and Ben, as the years have gone by, is realizing that this is how he will probably die.   
  
He’s been attacked by so many things, so many unexplainable acts have almost cut his life short. Nothing surprises him anymore. Bursts of fire, trees come to life, force-like energies that send his body through the air, crush his windpipe, drag him across the ground.  
  
This is what he lives for. This is all he has. He has Chris, and the witches. If he dies by their hands, at least it was for what he he breathes for. The reason he even takes air into his lungs has the right to kill him.   
  
Maybe in a world where he doesn’t only have this, he could put this behind him. But he doesn’t live in fantasies. No matter how inconceivable the things he does, the things he sees, are, this is his real life. Life or death, this is it.  
  


~~

  
  
Ben takes a cab to the Pawnee Super Suites. He should really move his car from the campground but he needs to see Chris.  
  
He pushes his forehead against the glass of the window. Ben watches the trees blur and the cars drive past. His stomach swirls. His head reels. The backseat of the cab feels so small and everything is coming at him in waves of guilt and uncertainty. It smashes his chest and makes breathing hard.  
  
Leslie. Leslie is a witch. He’s in love with a witch. He’s certain of her, sure of the good spirit that lives within her skin and radiates to everything she touches. He is in love with her and she’s a witch. A witch who doesn’t murder children, a witch who doesn’t destroy, only creates.   
  
Leslie is one in a million, yes, but she can’t be the only one. The only witch who is good.  
  
But that was never covered in his training. Chris never told him about the ethical ambiguity and duality of witch types. To Ben, there was only one type: the type that destroy lives and leave him hurting, leave him with gaping holes and destruction in his veins.   
  
Does Chris know?   
  
Ben throws a twenty at the cab driver and runs up to Chris’ room. Chris is sweating when he answers the door, his smiling face quickly diminishing when he takes in Ben’s appearance.   
  
Ben wipes his forehead while everything crashes down on him at once. Joan escaping, his near death experience in the woods, Chris’ possible deceit, Leslie knowing, Leslie being a witch.   
  
“I fucked up,” Ben says.  
  
It’s a snap confession to both of them. Ben wants to ask Chris about everything, but facing him, he’s only full of guilt.  
  
“What happened?” Chris turns and rummages through his bag of vitamins.   
  
“I went out last night.”  
  
“You hunted alone? Ben, I thought--”  
  
“I know, I know, we made a deal, but I was working through something so--”  
  
“So you tried to get yourself killed?” Chris snaps. He opens a bottle and swallows a pill dry.  
  
Ben hangs his head, putting his hands on his hips. “Yes.” He shakes his head. “No, I just really had to do this. I killed one.”  
  
“It was still irresponsible.”   
  
Chris shakes his head and Ben can see him thinking, remembering the abandonment his father left in his heart. At least his dad’s was not intentional. Ben can’t say the same.  
  
“Another escaped,” Ben whispers.  
  
He’s afraid to say it because of what it all means. Once they’re spotted or found out, they have to either act quickly and kill them all or leave. They don’t know enough about the witches that inhabit Pawnee to attack yet. Their only option is to leave.   
  
Leave Pawnee.  
  
Leave Leslie.  
  
Chris unscrews another bottle and curses under his breath. “Pack your things.” He goes to the closet, digging out his suitcase.  
  
“Chris, wait.” But Chris keeps moving. “We can’t leave, I don’t want to leave.”  
  
“Well, Ben, you should have thought about that before you went out alone.”  
  
He sounds like such a father, just like he sounded when Chris was training with him in the beginning. Now they have a partnership, something rare with smooth ebbs and flows. It’s crashing now. He tries to grasp onto it.  
  
“Stop,” Ben says. Chris starts digging through drawers. “Stop!” He puts clothes in the suitcase, not bothering to fold them. He’s mad, he’s being like this to get at Ben. But Chris will make them leave, Ben knows how important Chris’ rules are to him. They are strict and to be followed rigidly. “Chris!”  
  
Ben puts himself in front of Chris’ suitcase. Chris stands tall, looking down at Ben with a clenched jaw.  
  
“Why didn’t you tell me there were good witches?”  
  
“What are you talking about?”  
  
But he sees it. The flicker across his face, the uncertainty in the way Chris avoids Ben’s eyes.  
  
“What the fuck, Chris? Have I been murdering innocent people?”  
  
“They aren’t people, Ben!”  
  
“Leslie is a witch.”  
  
Ben regrets it instantly. If Chris doesn’t see a difference between someone with a pure soul, full of life and give, and someone who murders children, then he’s put Leslie in danger.  
  
Chris looks at the shirt he holds in his hands. “I’m sorry.”  
  
“I don’t think I am.”  
  
“Ben, it’s not that simple—“  
  
“I’ve slaughtered them, Chris!” Ben shoves Chris in the chest, tears stinging against his eyes. Chris is his family, his strongest tie, and he’s lying, he’s been lying to him. “Shit.”  
  
“Listen, this is what I do by blood, this is in my family, there are strict rules. My dad—”  
  
“Oh, fuck you and your dad.”  
  
Someone knocks on the door. Chris stares at Ben while Ben lets the regret swallow him whole. It’s a slow burn, one that trickles from his core and extends into his limbs, makes his entire being one of guilt and sadness. The knock sounds again. They ignore it. Ben wants to punch Chris and tell him he’s sorry all in one breath. His eyes sting and Ben can’t ignore the way Chris’ eyes also gloss against the light.  
  
There’s one more knock and then the door flies in.   
  
A gust of wind pushes through the room. Ben flies back and the bed slides over him, crushing his shoulder and pinning him against the floor and the wall, hidden. Ben’s sight is limited to a patch of the floor near the door and the TV set. Everything has moved back but he can make out the three figures in front of the closed door and Chris’ body, slumped against the bed on the other side. The visible side.  
  
Ben tries to call out but he can’t seem to move or speak. Something they have done to him, to both of them.  
  
His heart pounds in his ears, his body aching and his world diminishing. Just when it was falling together. No. No.  
  
He tries to scream it. No. Nothing comes out.  
  
“Infamous Chris Traeger. I’ve read your book, Run to the Moon,” Joan purs. “Was a great read.”  
  
Chris’ body lifts and Ben watches his feet dangle, gliding toward them. He can only see their feet. Two witches, one of them Joan, and a warlock. Ben tries to move, tries to speak. Nothing. It’s like Stephanie’s bedroom all over again.   
  
“Where’s your partner?” Another voice says. Higher pitched and nasal. “Tried to kill Joanie, and I love eating the muscles of cowardly men for breakfast.”  
  
They laugh.  
  
For a moment Ben can feel his fingers move.  
  
“He’s not here,” Chris chokes.  
  
Ben’s body goes still again. Fuck.  
  
“Too bad. He’ll have to come find us.” Ben’s screaming, every muscle is tearing, he wants out. “He’ll know where to find us. He has acquaintances.”  
  
“I thought he was banging Leslie,” the warlock says.  
  
“Shut up, Jamm.”  
  
“Whatever, I’m just saying, that’s why--”  
  
“Let’s go.”  
  
Ben watches them leave, walking through the doorway as if they’re all friends, as if Chris isn’t their hostage. Before the door closes, Ben watches Chris’ feet touch the ground.  
  
It’s only a few seconds before he can move again, grunting as he shoves the bed. Something is blocking it. He keeps pushing, his shoulder throbbing in pain as he does. He curses to himself, furious at his carelessness, mad about his feelings for Leslie, how loyal Chris is, how, if Chris dies, Ben’s last words to him will burn in his throat until the day he dies.   
  
That sick, familiar pulse of revenge is starting to slosh through Ben’s veins again.  
  
The bed moves just enough for Ben to squeeze out from behind it. He doesn’t take a moment to breathe before he’s frantically searching for Chris’ keys. They’re underneath the nightstand, which has flown backwards with the rest of the furniture. He races down the stairs and ignores the looks he gets from fellow patrons of the hotel and staff. His shirt is bloody and he must look like a nightmare.   
  
The car doesn’t move fast enough. Ben whispers, “Come on,” at slow or stopped cars as if it will make everything move faster. His vision is warping a little, his eyelids heavy, and body starting to dwindle in strength. He hasn’t slept in so long.  
  
It occurs to him he still hasn’t really taken a breath, taken one single moment to clear his head and fill his lungs completely. When she opens the door, he finally does, and it should feel better, it should make him feel better, but any relief she gives him is short lived.  
  
“They took Chris.”  
  
“What?” she asks. She’s back in her jeans and Porpoises t-shirt, her hair still mussed from earlier.   
  
“Joan, some other woman, a warlock named Jamm?” Leslie’s face shifts with flashes of recognition. “Where are they?”  
  
Leslie shakes her head. “Ben, you should calm down first, maybe rest--”  
  
“I need to find him Leslie!”   
  
She takes a step back. He closes his eyes and tries to control his breathing, control anything at all for once in his life. When he opens his eyes, Leslie’s keys are in her hand.  
  
“No, no, no, just tell me where they are.”  
  
“If I know them, I know what they really want.” Leslie closes the door and shoves past him.  
  
“Leslie.”  
  
He can’t be responsible for whatever happens to her tonight, he can’t have two deaths on his hands. He can’t lose the only two people who let him in. Ben doesn’t doubt Leslie’s power, but there’s always the chance. One mistake, one wrong move.  
  
She whips around. “You’ll need me.” Her stare is hard and sure, rendering him still. She nods her head like this is unnegotiable. Leslie turns back around and gets in the car.  
  
Ben joins her, pulls away from the curb as she speaks.  
  
“We have to make a pitstop.”  
  
Her voice is steady but her hands are twisting into each other.  
  
“Okay, why?”  
  
“We’re going pick up my mom.”  
  
Ben stops the car in the middle of Leslie’s street. “We’re doing what?” All he can think of is a tiny Leslie being reminded by her mom that hunters are a threat, that he’s a threat. A car honks and Ben jumps, driving forward.  
  
“She won’t save a hunter,” Ben says, shaking his head.  
  
“No,” Leslie agrees, “but she’ll understand.”  
  
Ben waits in the car, bouncing his knee so hard that the whole car shakes. He bites his nails, taps the steering wheel, watches the clouds move. It only takes five minutes, but by the time Marlene is seated in the backseat of Chris’ car, Ben’s nerves are going haywire.  
  
He drives and no one speaks. He waits for the silence to be cut with questions and concerns, plans or any type of tactics. That’s what Ben and Chris do before something like this. They like to be prepared, have six back up plans, and give each other last thoughts as if they are already at their own funerals. This car ride is nothing like that.  
  
Until Marlene breaks the silence.  
  
“You love my daughter.”  
  
Ben’s knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
“You’re a hunter.”  
  
“Yes, ma’am.”  
  
He feels like he’s 16 again, talking to Samantha Robson’s dad before their date. It was only one date and there was nothing special between them, except maybe hormones, but the ten minutes with her father before she came downstairs was lethal.  
  
“Stop calling her ma’am,” Leslie mumbles, leaning over the center console.  
  
“For me,” Marlene starts, “this is not about you or your partner, I hope that is clear.”  
  
“It is.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
The rest of the ride is silent, except for Leslie’s directions. When they park, Leslie stretches, tilting her face back to the sun. Marlene glances at Ben before walking up to a tree, putting her palm against the bark. Her eyes close. Ben feels weird watching her, so he turns back to Leslie who gives him a small, encouraging smile. She looks worn and tired, but she fills him infinitely with hope.  
  
Leslie walks through the trees into a small clearing and lies down on her back. Ben steps around the car and into the campground, toward her. Her eyes are closed, arms to her side, palms pressed into the earth. Her chest rises and falls and the wind takes little pieces of her hair and sweeps them across her face. Peaceful, happy, vibrant.  
  
She blinks her eyes open and pushes off the ground, eyes locking with Ben. She holds his stare as if to challenge him to understand it. To understand her, how she is different from what he is chasing, how she’s the opposite of destructive, how he’s had it wrong.  
  
He has. But he’s also had it right. She knows that.   
  
She looks away and Marlene follows Leslie deeper into the forest. Ben trails close behind.  
  
Ben doesn’t ask questions, suddenly put out of power by the mere presence of the Knope women. He’s not even heavily armed, he has a gun and a knife. If he went out here alone, he would be dead in seconds. He just hopes no one dies instead of him. This should be his execution, not Leslie and Marlene’s redemption.  
  
Their path is long, curving through trees and brush. Ben just follows them, lost and alone with his doubt, his guilt, his thoughts. Every once in a while, Leslie looks back at him. He doesn’t muster up a smile or a shrug. He just looks at her and she tilts her head, dropping her chin with understanding.  
  
As the ground starts to climb, the women walk parallel to the hill until there is a vast grouping of tangled vines and leaves. Ben reaches back for his gun and holds it low, feeling the safety in the metal. Leslie glances at him, her eyes drifting to the gun and back up again. He doesn’t know what goes through her mind, but her face does change, just a little, just enough for him to notice. He silently begs for her eyes to find his again. So he can try to tell her that this is how he protects himself, this is how he can help, this is how he survives.  
  
She turns back around.  
  
“Tammy!” Marlene yells at the wall of green and browns. She waits one beat. “I guess she didn’t hear me.”  
  
Marlene pushes her hand toward the wall and a dull blue smoke sprays from her hand and wind follows it, blasting away the facade. Ben squints his eyes against the wind and brush until the wind clears enough for him to see.  
  
He can’t see all the way inside, but from what he can tell, the hill gives way to a deep cave. At the opening that Marlene made is a woman, her back as straight as an arrow, her stare as cold as ice. Her blond hair is pulled back in a neat ponytail and her pantsuit is neatly pressed and clean, despite the recent blast.   
  
“Marlene, what a surprise,” the woman says, void of emotion. If she’s scared, she isn’t showing it.  
  
Two others run up to the woman, panting as they take in who has come to visit them. One of them is Joan, the other is a warlock he doesn’t recognize.  
  
Joan locks eyes with Ben and he raises his gun.  
  
“You came here with a hunter, Marlene? This is a new angle.”  
  
“I came here to tell you, again, to stay the fuck away from my daughter.”  
  
“Why don’t you join us?” Joan asks.  
  
“No thank you,” Marlene says. “Just passing along a message.”  
  
“And what about you, Ben? Are you, too, just passing along a message?” the blond witch asks.  
  
Ben lowers his gun. “I came for Chris.”  
  
“Sure, come in, retrieve him yourself.”  
  
Ben knows this is a trap, that if he goes in, he’s never coming out. He can’t leave Chris in there to die, and yes, he may already be dead, but there’s only one way to find that out.  
  
He steps forward.  
  
“No!”  
  
Leslie’s voice plants him there, right into his first step toward death. He doesn’t want to look back at her. If he does, he’ll do whatever she says, he’ll leave Chris behind, he’ll throw away this life, and be hers, forever.  
  
And he just can’t do that.  
  
He takes another step and this time, Leslie is at his side, holding his arm. He closes his eyes as if it will block her out.  
  
“You can’t,” she whispers, “you won’t come back.”  
  
Ben swallows. “I can’t leave him there.”  
  
He hears the wobble in her curse, the frustration is in the grip on his arm. “Fuck.”  
  
Ben takes a step, fights for it, and Leslie keeps up with him.  
  
“Leslie,” Marlene warns, “stop.”  
  
“I know what I’m doing, Mom.”  
  
“I’m not letting you go in there alone,” Marlene seethes.  
  
Leslie moves her hand down Ben’s arm and clasps their hands together. She squeezes and Ben is sure he feels the universe spin just for him.  
  
“I won’t be alone.”  
  
They continue forward and Ben squeezes her hand as if it will keep him standing, keep him breathing, make him strong. It does all of them.  
  
“You don’t have to do this,” he whispers.   
  
 _But please, please do._  
  
Leslie only holds on and they continue inside. It looks like a cave, dimly lit with torches and candles. He’s been in lairs before, this is no different, but never has he walked in like this. Like an offering.  
  
They don’t walk far, just down a wide hallway and into another room. Chris is in there, bound and sitting in the middle of the floor. He’s roughed up but alive. Ben moves to run to him, but Leslie pulls him back.  
  
“Alright, you have me, give him up.”  
  
The warlock circles them until he’s facing Leslie, slowly walking backwards into the room. “No way, Knope. No way do I believe you’re giving yourself up for a hunter.”  
  
“Shut up, Jamm, and give up Chris.”  
  
Joan raises an eyebrow as she sits on a chair made out of stone and velvet. Almost a throne.  
  
“You call hunters by their names now, Leslie? I’m assuming you know about this one.” Joan points at Ben. “Tried to kill me last night. Actually killed Marcia.”  
  
“You deserve worse,” Leslie says.  
  
Joan crosses her legs. “Worse than an eternity in hell?”  
  
Leslie stares her down, lets the silence answer for her.  
  
“We should have stolen one of your boyfriend’s friends a long time ago. Look how fiery you are. I knew it was in you,” the blond woman says. She circles them and Chris, cooing her words in an evil song that makes all of Ben’s bones turn cold. “Passionate, raw, powerful.”  
  
“Stop it,” Ben says.  
  
“Oh shut up, hunter, you are no worse than the rest of us.”  
  
They’re right, but Leslie isn’t.  
  
“You’re not taking her and you aren’t allowed to talk about her anymore.” His words are put together so clumsily and his voice is unsteady but he means them. His threat is real, and if he dies with his intentions, so be it.  
  
Ben feels uprooted from his spine. He flies backward into the stone wall. He’s pushed into the side wall and then launched forward into Chris, both of their bodies sliding across the floor until they crash into stone.  
  
Ben groans, trying to will words from his mouth. Is Chris okay? He can’t ask or move. Every movement is one of agony. He slowly curls his body, hears Chris groan in pain. He’s thankful for the sound.  
  
Then everything starts to explode.  
  
Flashes of fire and ice spark between the witches. Ben closes his eyes with every gust of wind that finds its way to him and Chris. Stone turns to gravel and it flies at them. Ben covers his face, trying to look through his fingers for Leslie.  
  
It’s a mess, bodies fly and flames flash across his vision. Sometimes it’s so bright he can’t keep his eyes open and others it is so dark that he can’t see a thing. He searches for her when he can.  
  
He sees her form flames in her hand and throw them forward, watches her body twist so she can dodge a blow. At some point, Leslie starts bleeding from a cut on her head. She doesn’t stop, every time he finds her again, she’s up and fighting. Her hair is flying, following every one of her movements. She’s not graceful, she’s just frantic power, her limbs flying and body strong. She’s quick and beautiful.  
  
Ben’s throat closes as she takes some kind of shot in the chest. It might be a spear or a knife, some kind of weapon that he didn’t notice anyone holding. She falls back, sliding across the floor. Ben screams, looking around the room for the source. The witches are down, in isolated heaps along the ground. They move and twitch, regenerating. Only Jamm stands. His stance is wide and Ben watches him take a step toward Leslie.  
  
There’s no way Ben should be standing, or running, and it has to be impossible that he’s tackling Jamm to the ground. Ben knows he only has a few seconds before a witch gets up and takes him back down, maybe kills him, but it doesn’t stop him from pummeling Jamm until he’s bleeding out of his nose and between his teeth. Jamm is moaning and Ben can feel him trying to overpower Ben. But somehow Ben is winning, he can finish him off.  
  
But he stops, Jamm’s collar in his fist, with a punch ready to blow. Jamm’s eyes are closed. He’s trying to regain his strength and heal himself in this pause. Ben looks at Leslie and she’s watching, her eyes wide, body slumped against the wall.  
  
Ben stands and pushes Jamm into the floor. He takes a couple steps to her, ready to feel her warm skin, her breaths against his lips, anything to make him feel anything other than the overwhelming need to take lives.  
  
“Ben!” Leslie yells.  
  
Ben turns, reaching for his gun. It’s not there. He watches Jamm’s body fly up above toward the ceiling, along with the rest of the witches. The room rumbles and a funnel of wind flies across his face. He blinks, stumbling back. The rumbles grow bigger and the shaking is loud in his ears. Ben reaches back for Leslie but she’s not there anymore.   
  
The world shakes too hard. He has to brace himself against the wall. It’s so loud, there’s screams, wind, and the breaking of stone. Ben tries to find Leslie, quickly looks around the dark room. He falls into the wall as he spots Marlene in the doorway, arms up. Leslie, where’s Leslie?  
  
He catches the bright flash of her hair. Her hands reach toward the ceiling. A screech sounds from above and he looks up at the bodies in the air.   
  
Each of them bursts, turning into a fine dust, falling to the ground.  
  
Ben leans against the wall, catching his breath. It’s dark in the room. He tries to breathe again, tries to yell out for Leslie, for Chris.  
  
A small bulb of light ignites to his right. He looks, jumping back. His body catches up with the adrenaline and everything hurts. He can hardly move his arms, his legs are trying to give out on him. The orb moves and Ben sees it is in Leslie’s hand, her tired face, trying to smile, is faintly lit by her own light.  
  
The torches light up again. Leslie whips around and Ben watches her shoulders soften and her own flames extinguish.   
  
She rushes to Marlene and wraps her arms around her. Marlene hugs her daughter tight, pushing her hand over Leslie’s hair. Ben can’t hear them talk or their cries but he can see them, feel them. Marlene pulls away and holds Leslie’s face in her hands and talks to her.   
  
Ben looks away, finding Chris. He runs to him. He’s shaking and bleeding, but Ben rejoices at the beat he feels on Chris’ neck. Ben calls out to Leslie but she’s already next to him, starting to kneel.  
  
He watches her heal him, fixated first by her calm face, then by the strength in her hands. Chris’ skin turns smooth and his face gains color again. The sweat on his skin is still there when he blinks his eyes open, gasping for breath like he’s been drowning. Ben takes his arm and pulls him to him, just as Leslie lets go.   
  
“A witch healed me,” Chris gasps. Ben holds onto him.  
  
“Leslie did, yeah.”  
  
Chris finally squeezes Ben back.  
  
They are a mess of apologies and words of gratitude. Chris pats Ben on the shoulder and looks at Leslie, thanking her. Leslie shrugs and nods, as if this wasn’t even a decision, as if it was just necessary.  
  
Marlene says they should leave. Ben heaves Chris off the ground, but the gesture soon reverses. Chris is a little weak, but healed. Ben is hardly standing. Chris helps Ben walk through the cave and out into the darkness of the campgrounds.   
  
They have to stop a few minutes into their walk back, because Ben can’t keep walking. Leslie hurries to him and places one hand over his heart and the other slides against his palm, interlocking their fingers. He feels her through him, taking every damaged part and healing it. The scars, the bones, the muscle. His fucking soul.  
  
“I’m sorry--”  
  
“I love you,” she interrupts.  
  
It’s a small whisper, faint on her hardly moving lips and it almost gets swallowed by the silence of the night. Everything inside of him lightens, her healing and words giving him brand new life.  
  
“You don’t have to do this now, Leslie.”  
  
She runs her fingers through his hair, over his neck and along his jaw. He nuzzles into her touch.  
  
“You beat someone up for me,” she says. He laughs and he’s thankful she healed him. It would’ve hurt his ribs otherwise. “It was awesome.”  
  
“You killed witches for me.” He turns toward her, finding her jaw in the darkness. “You didn’t have to do that. You shouldn’t have to.”  
  
“There’s more to them than just you and me, Ben. I have the rough draft of a detailed history if you want to get up to speed.”  
  
He smiles. Her forehead falls to his.   
  
“You’re not a bad person, Ben.”  
  
She’s wrong. He is, but maybe he doesn’t have to be.   
  
Ben rubs his thumb along her jaw, up to her the edge of her bottom lip and down again. “I know,” he whispers. It might be a lie, but if he can start believing in it, it may help him get there.  
  
They catch up with Marlene and Chris. No one really talks. Chris is even silent, his usual post assignment pep talks left unsaid. It’s fine, Ben can hear them anyway. Annoying and necessary all at once.  
  
Ben takes his car’s spare from Chris’ ring and hands the rest of the keys to him. Ben rounds his car. He gets in and is surprised when Leslie sits down in the passenger seat.   
  
He starts the car. “Where’s Chris?”  
  
“My mom is taking him. She’s going to have a heart to heart with him.”  
  
Ben shivers. “Better him than me.”  
  
“Oh, you’re not off the hook. Neither am I.”  
  
He drives. He doesn’t turn on the radio. They are quiet and he’s overtly aware of every sound. The rumble of the car, the roar of the engine, cars outside, the blinker. His heart beats and his blood flows. At a stop light he looks over at Leslie. She looks little and lost, very unlike her. She’s slouched toward the door, looking through the window. Cars drive past, illuminating her in flashes of headlights. Her eyes are glassy and unfocused. He thinks about reaching over to grab her hand. The light turns green and he keeps both hands on the steering wheel as he pulls forward.  
  
Ben pulls into her driveway and puts the car in park, waiting. He looks at the speedometer while she unbuckles her seatbelt and opens the door.   
  
“Are you coming?” she asks.  
  
God, yes.  
  
He follows her through the house. She turns on lamps without lifting her finger. In her bathroom, they undress. Leslie turns on the shower and steps in, reaching her hand out for him to take. They embrace under the hot water.  
  
Ben breaths against her. The water hits his head and slips down his face, splashing onto her shoulders. He follows the run of the water along her skin with his fingers. Down her back, over her ass, along the curve of her sides. She trembles in his arms, but they don’t feel weak or scared. He feels something else in the shake. Fatigue and guilt. He knows because he’s felt this before. He’s been under the pour of water, hoping to be cleansed.   
  
He did this to her. There’s more to this story, to her story, but he’s still guilty. He still shakes, too, right along with her.  
  
Ben kisses her head, turning his body away from the spray of water.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
Leslie blinks the water from her eyes and looks up at him. He pushes the droplets of water from her cheeks like they’re tears.  
  
“For what?” she asks.  
  
For coming into her life. For being something she feared. For falling in love with her. For telling her the truth. For coming back to her before she was ready. For dragging her through this, for bringing her family through this. For making her shiver in the afterglow of murder. For constantly being his savior.  
  
For giving him a reason to stop chasing the unattainable.  
  
“Never mind,” he says, kissing her lips. “Thank you.”  
  
She doesn’t miss a beat, just accepts his gratitude, takes him for all he’s worth.   
  
“You’re welcome.”


	3. Epilogue

Leslie wakes up to the smell of waffles.

The sun is only starting to dust the sky and her cheeks already hurt from smiling by the time she puts on her robe.

Ben doesn’t see her come in, his back to her, his head drooped with fatigue. In the year that they’ve been together, he’s never woken before her. But today they’re going to Paris. Today is their anniversary. Today is a special day.

She watches him move, shuffling from the waffle maker to the cabinet of plates. The plates they picked out together.

“A fresh start,” she said months ago. 

Ben yawns, scratching his neck. She smiles, leaning into the wall to watch. He’ll notice her sometime, but while she’s the silent observer, she soaks him up.

She takes in the way his pajama pants hang way too low and the stretched collar of his t-shirt. His bedhead is ridiculous as always and his shoulders are slumped, his movements lazy. He must be so tired. They celebrated early last night, rolling around on the bed and sinking teeth into skin. He whispered, “I love you,” as he pushed into her and she gripped sheets. 

Unlike Leslie, Ben actually needs eight hours of sleep. She’s learned this.

He’ll sleep on the plane.

Leslie finally starts walking toward him and she whispers a, “Hey,” as she rounds the counter.

He turns and smiles at her, his eyes practically closed. They kiss and Leslie holds him from behind, resting her cheek on his back.

“Happy anniversary,” she says.

“Happy anniversary.”

He pats her clasped hands on his stomach and flips the waffle maker. Leslie kisses the fabric of his shirt and walks around to the barstools and sits, leaning her elbows on the counter. 

Ben has been looking forward to this trip for months, obsessively planning and sending her countdown texts every day. He gets restless, she can tell. He fidgets a lot, likes to take weekend getaways, and when they miss a fun day trip, he can be grumpy. He’s cute when he’s grumpy but she feels bad. He’s used to traveling, to seeing new places and discovering new adventures, meeting new people. It’s only half of what he’s given up, but it’s the half that remains.

Ben puts a cup of coffee in front of her and kisses her cheek before taking care of the bacon that is frying in a pan. Part of his restlessness comes out in his amazing domestic abilities. He still works from home, in his office adjacent to the spare room, and does so many chores that Leslie hardly lifts a finger. He takes care of her. Ann is constantly jealous and Leslie constantly boasts.

Leslie has Ben and Ann but she’s starting to feel the tug of Chris’ absence. Chris left, amicably, but still on his own journey. He’s more careful now, doing more research, and making the right decisions, but Ben couldn’t follow him anymore. Leslie is happy Ben chose a different way to handle things, a different path of understanding and loss, but she knows he misses him. She found them Face Timing in the kitchen the other day.

From what Leslie can tell, Ben doesn’t miss hunting. He’s restless, and his frustrations or moments of utter agony of what he’s lost are still there but they are dealt with differently now. He cradles Leslie in his lap, goes for a jog, begs for a trip to Chicago or New York, throws her down on the bed with the promise of hours between the sheets. 

Leslie is thankful for those moments, because she has hers, too. Sometimes she sees the dust falling all over again. 

There’s a constant give and take. Leslie gives him everything, just like he gives her the opportunities to run off and help Ann at the hospital. Ben is used to her powers now, doesn’t flinch when she turns on lights or stirs coffee without a spoon. Like a vicious cycle of joy, he starts calling her ‘his witch.’ 

She cries 50% of the time he says it. He just holds her cheeks in his hands and kisses her until she stops. She’s thankful for him, so happy he dropped into her life. Leslie worries she changed him, that she made him give up something he needed. She sees it in the way he looks at other witches, the ones she’s told him about. He doesn’t hunt them, they know to stay away. But Leslie worries that this isn’t fair, that she can still be a witch but he can’t be what he was, whether it was right or wrong. 

But Ben assures her, he keeps her grounded in the reality of them.

“You’re here now,” he says, his throat raw, “that’s all I need.”


End file.
